PLF CEO FORUM 2022 Concurrent Session C:
“THE FUTURE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY”
PANELLISTS:
- Mr. Rashyid Redza Anwarudin, Chief Sustainability Officer, Sime Darby Plantation
- Mr Saiful Hakim bin Abdul Rahman, Director, Strategic Planning Division, Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia
- Mr. Syed Malek Faisal Syed Mohamad, Head of RE Malaysia & SEA, Gentari, Petronas
- Mr Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah bin Tan Sri Sanusi, Founder & CEO, Kitaran Tabah Sdn Bhd
- Mr Yeoh Keong Hann, Executive Director, YTL Power International Berhad
MODERATOR: Mr Romil Shamsudin, Founder & CEO, Sustainability
Engineering Sdn Bhd
This session highlighted the roadmap and framework for renewable energy in Malaysia. Mr Saiful Hakim of SEDA explained the target trajectory of renewable energy, highlighting its targets and the key actions to be taken. Malaysia’s framework favours large scale projects, and the representatives from Sime Darby Plantation & Gentari explained their efforts and achievements to help Malaysia achieve Net Zero (carbon emissions) by 2050. Mr Yeoh Keong Hann of YTL put forward the idea that we should pool our renewable energy resources in both Peninsular & East Malaysia, allowing Malaysia to be a green energy hub for South-East Asia. Mr Akhramsyah agreed, and added that Malaysia could also explore some alternative or niche sources of renewable energy such as low-head hydro power, and ocean thermal energy conversion.
“At the end of 2021, SEDA published a roadmap (to 2035) for Malaysia called the MyRER (Malaysia Renewable Energy Roadmap). In this roadmap, we identified the target for Malaysia to support the nation’s aspiration to become a net zero country by 2050. The roadmap not only discusses annual targets, but also highlights studies done in exploring potential renewable energies that are not yet viable such as wind and geothermal. The roadmap also identified key strategic pillars and its challenges, along with key actions to be done to achieve net zero.” Mr Saiful Hakim bin Abdul Rahman
“We started looking at our decarbonising journey way back in 2010. We looked into a few things; energy consumption, carbon emissions, and renewable energy sources that we can use in our operations…We also started looking at other potential renewable energy sources that we can use, mainly solar. As one of the largest landowners in Malaysia, we looked at our lands’ potential to harvest solar energy, so we started looking at areas that are otherwise unproductive because we are not able to plant palm trees, and we converted some of them to solar farms. We worked with a partner to participate in LSS1 (Large Scale Solar), and we now have a solar farm up and running. In the recent LSS4, we also submitted a few bids, and we have some successful ones. So we are looking at that potential area to explore further.”
Mr Rashyid Redza Anwarudin
“The idea of Gentari is to develop a business that’s able to provide Net Zero solutions, not just to decarbonise Petronas to support our Net Zero aspirations, but also part of a new business to grow Petronas in managing this energy transition. The three main businesses within Gentari are 1) Renewable Energy, 2) Clean Hydrogen, and 3) Green Mobility which currently carries the focus on Electric Vehicle (EV). With renewable energy, we have a very ambitious target that we need to achieve so that we can bring it at scale, and at pace.”
Mr Syed Malek Faisal Syed Mohamad
“Kitaran Tabah started earlier this year (2022) in January, and we started engaging with Bursa-listed companies, and what we found was that the level of awareness (of ESG) was a concern. In board and c-suite levels, it’s good but c-suite minus one and further down, that’s where the awareness is concerning, as those levels are crucial to achieve meaningful reduction of emissions. Many of our conversations turned into awareness exercises of the type of emissions, and what needed to be done to first mitigate, then reduce, then eventually offset the emissions.”
Mr Akhramsyah Muammar Ubaidah bin Tan Sri Sanusi
“Malaysia should be building a transmission line from Sabah and Sarawak, connecting the grid to the Peninsular, and then making Peninsular Malaysia a green energy hub. Once we have that cheap baseload power, we can attract more foreign industries to industrial areas such as Pengerang, Johor, or Ulu Jelai, Pahang, among others. Malaysia is also strategically placed within ASEAN. If we can pool the energy from our own resources, and make it into an industry, it can generate income for Malaysia or be used to birth more industries. I believe that our country as a whole needs to think bigger.”
Mr Yeoh Keong Han
