Malaysia selling surplus renewable energy to Singapore, says Akmal

KUALA LUMPUR: The Renewable Energy (RE) supplied to Singapore starting this month is the country's surplus green electricity supply that is currently unused.

Therefore, Deputy Minister of Energy Transition and Water Transformation Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir said the government is encouraging more companies in the country to switch to using green electricity.

"The RE that we currently generate is still in surplus and we are indeed encouraging more companies that want to meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices to choose to use green energy," he said during an oral question and answer session at Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (Dec 11).

He was responding to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man (PN-Kubang Kerian) on concerns about the sale of renewable energy to Singapore and the increase in demand from domestic data centres causing Malaysia to be unable to achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Akmal Nasrullah said the Energy Transition and Water Transformation Ministry was committed to increasing the mix of renewable energy capacity in the country's electricity supply from 28 per cent currently to 31 per cent by 2025, 40 per cent by 2035 and 70 per cent by 2050.

He said the gradual and planned increase in renewable energy capacity was a preparatory step by the ministry and the Energy Commission to meet the demand for green electricity required by data centres, in addition to being one of the conditions to encourage new high-value investments into the country.

"The existing RE programme will continue with improvements in addition to introducing new RE programmes to increase the mix of RE in the country's electricity supply," he said.

In addition, Akmal Nasrullah said that to enable corporate companies to have easier access to green electricity supply directly from RE generators, the government has introduced the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (CRESS) programme.

The programme, he said, allows corporate companies, including data centres, to obtain green electricity supply directly from RE generators through the utility grid network.

He was responding to Tuan Ibrahim's original question regarding the readiness of the country's public and private energy supply ecosystem in supplying green energy for data centre operations.- Bernama