KUALA LUMPUR (May 23): Attractive investment policies and strategies are needed to push the energy transition, including to facilitate renewable energy (RE) adoption in sectors like manufacturing and transportation, said Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.

Touching on Asean’s renewable energy industry, Nik Nazmi said there is a need for a greater and more concentrated regional collaboration, including regional roadmaps, policies and regulatory standards.

“On Malaysia’s part, the kickstarting of cross-border RE trading will also see an expansion of our generation and storage capacity.

“We see this, in turn, as contributing towards the realisation of the long-awaited Asean Power Grid,” Nik Nazmi said at the launch of the Asean Green Hydrogen Conference 2023 here.

Malaysia, he said, is a proud member of Asean and believes that “prosperity is best secured, not only working on a national scale but on a regional scale”.

“I believe that Asean countries have the potential to become the leading green hydrogen hub, due to our abundance of RE sources and strategic location.”

Asean is also blessed to be in strategic positions for exporting green hydrogen to other countries, including being in major shipping lanes and located close to major demand centres for green hydrogen like Japan, South Korea and China, he said.

The minister referred to Asean’s potential of 800 gigawatt (GW) of solar energy, 300GW of wind energy, and 200GW of hydropower, which will provide a competitive advantage for green energy and production of green hydrogen.

“It will be a great waste if we, as Asean, fail to take this opportunity to collaborate and take the lead in becoming a major green hydrogen hub for the global market.

“Our region, also, is now home of a total population of nearly 670 million and a combined GDP (gross domestic product) of US$3 trillion, making us the fifth-largest economy in the world,” Nik Nazmi said.

“This also means that our success or failure in the energy transition will have a global impact. So, it is something that we absolutely must succeed in, if our region and the world is to have any future at all,” he added.

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