New Target for Renewable Energy in Malaysia

Late last year, energy ministers in the Asean region agreed to a target of 35% renewable energy (RE) in installed power capacity by 2025. This aim was a result of Malaysia’s proposal for the region to set an RE target in installed power capacity by 2025. Our efforts were not in vain when the ASEAN Energy Ministers agreed to the new set target of 35% RE in installed power capacity set to be hit four years from now. 

The target was formed under the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC) Phase 2 which will be implemented during the period of 2021 until 2025. 

Leading by example, Malaysia has thus far offered 1,000 megawatts (MW) of solar quota via competitive bidding in May 2020 that brought in potential investments worth RM4 billion and created 12,000 job opportunities. Some of the encouraging prices were offered by the bidders with 56 out of 93 bidders offering prices below 20 cents/kWh for capacities between 30-50MW. The lowest bid received was 13.99 cents/kWh.

These offered prices clearly indicate that the pathway to a more sustainable energy future is becoming more competitive.

In supporting Asean’s vision in advancing multilateral power trading to ensure energy security, Malaysia continues to give its commitment in pursuing this path by pledging to explore the technical and commercial feasibility and viability of cross-border power trade of up to 100MW from Lao PDR to Singapore via Thailand and Malaysia using the existing interconnections for a two-years from 2022 to 2023. The project, known as Lao PDR, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore – Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP) is a continuation of the past power integration project, transferring power from Lao PDR to Malaysia through Thailand, the LTM- PIP project. Malaysia and Lao PDR had traded a total of 30.2 GigaWatt hours of electricity from January 2018 to August 2020.

During the 38th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting, the ministers also pledged to continue to accelerate the energy transition of ASEAN towards a sustainable energy future, amidst unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the global energy sector and overall economic growth. The energy transition in ASEAN was said to not only focus on shifting from fossil fuel to renewables, but also to affordable, reliable, and resilient cleaner energy options and technology towards post-pandemic recovery.