A renewable energy subsidiary of oil & gas company Reservoir Link has agreed to jointly develop the first dispatchable solar PV power plant in Malaysia.
Solar PV project engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) solutions provider Founder Group Limited, trading as Founder Energy, announced the signing of a heads of agreement for the project last week (26 September) with Planet QEOS.
The deal would see a Founder-led consortium and Planet QEOS—an agricultural technologies group with diversified business lines in areas including IT and energy—jointly develop a 310MWp ground-mount solar PV plant, paired with a 620MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
The project, known as the Baram DeepTech Energy Program, will be located in the Baram highlands of northern Sarawak, on the island of Borneo.
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Founder Group claimed the project would have an estimated value of RM1.16 billion (US$276 million).
According to previous announcements from Planet QEOS, as reported by local press, companies signed on to work on the Baram DeepTech Energy Program also include Malaysian renewable energy groups EFS Energy and ES Sunlogy, as well as China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) and Chinese renewable energy solutions provider Hopewind.
The project would bring “round-the-clock renewable power to Baram…unlocking the full potential of the Baram hinterland for sustainable growth with improved connectivity, modern infrastructure, new industries, and skilled employment opportunities,” Sarawak deputy minister Datuk Gerawat Gala was quoted by The Star newspaper as saying back in August.
Founder Group said the consortium will now work to obtain regulatory approvals, achieve financial close and execute definitive agreements, including power purchase agreement (PPA) contracts.
Additionally, the consortium aims to develop a 200MW Tier-4 Green Data Centre Park in Baram. Tier-4 classification is the highest ranking for reliable operation a data centre can be given, with Tier-1 being the lowest.
Malaysia has been a relatively slow adopter of advanced energy storage technologies, thought to be a result of the country’s main peninsular regions being endowed with a stable electricity grid and good access to natural gas resources.
The increasing uptake of renewable energy generation, which the country will need to pursue to meet its national 2050 carbon neutrality target, will likely drive an uptick in demand in future years, as would a rise in data centre development.
According to climate think tank Ember, Malaysia leads the ASEAN region’s data centre boom, with 507MW of operational data centre capacity as of February 2025, forecast to rise to 1.96GW when considering developments in planning or under construction.
Ember predicts a sevenfold increase in power consumption in Malaysia between 2024 and 2030 such that data centre power demand will be equivalent to 30% of the country’s total demand by that time. Without faster solar and wind deployment, emissions in Malaysia, as well as fellow ASEAN data center hotspots the Philippines and Indonesia, will surge, the think tank warned.
In the meantime, the northern part of Borneo, as an island grid, has a much more acute need for stability and flexibility services that batteries can provide.
In September of last year, the energy storage arm of Chinese solar PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow signed a deal to provide BESS equipment to renewable energy company MSR-Green Energy (MSR-GE) for a 100MW/400MWh project in Sabah, a state in northern Borneo.
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