The World Bank will invest in a huge 4GW, 5.12GWh solar-plus-storage complex in Malaysia, which will form part of a pan-Southeast Asian power grid initiative.
The Southern Johor Renewable Energy Corridor (SJREC) will be a roughly 2,000sqKm area dedicated to solar PV and energy storage capacity. The US$6 billion project is backed by the World Bank’s private investment arm, the Iternational Finance Corporation (IFC), alongside the state investment firm of Johor, Permodalan Darul Ta’zim (PDT), and Ditrolic Energy, a Malaysian integrated energy company.
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The project is part of a number of larger schemes, chiefly the ASEAN Power Grid Initiative, a plan to integrate power grids and energy supply across Southeast Asian nations. In this vein, the SJREC will be part of the Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) “masterplan”, able to transmit clean energy to Singapore, which sits on Johor’s southern border.
As a densely populated city state, Singapore relies heavily on energy imports and has made significant plans for cross-border renewables transmission, perhaps most notably the mammoth AA PowerLink project in Northern Australia, which aims to deploy almost 20GW of solar capacity when fully operational and supply power to Singapore via undersea cables.
The site is also part of the Johor Green Development Policy 2030, which the state government introduced to expand its green industries and renewable energy developments.
“As the state agency entrusted to formulate the Johor Green Development Policy 2030, PDT is proud to witness our strategic framework transition into tangible reality today,” said Dato’ Ramlee bin A Rahman, president and group chief executive of Permodalan Darul Ta’zim.
“The Southern Johor Renewable Energy Corridor was conceived as the cornerstone of this policy, specifically Strategy one, to unlock the immense solar potential of the Kota Tinggi and Mersing districts.”
Tham Chee Aun, CEO of Ditrolic Energy, said the SJREC hub would “Anchor Johor’s clean energy export potential and provide a foundation for industries seeking renewable, low-cost power in the region.”
In an announcement, the IFC said the project would supply renewable energy to “local and multinational corporations, including hyperscale data centre operators, manufacturers, and other businesses in Johor”.
Renewables development is a major driver for meeting data centre power demand, primarily because of the affordability of solar projects and solar energy and the stability offered by coupling the technology with energy storage. In its most recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said the world would become “thirsty for energy” in the coming years and that data centres were an “Important driver” of growing power demand.
