翻译
What happened
Malaysia now has three grid-connected battery energy storage systems in service, one on each of the country’s three separately operated power systems. Each was announced as a first.
Sarawak Energy energised a 60 MW / 82 MWh battery system at the Sejingkat Power Plant near Kuching in December 2024. In a media release dated 14 February 2025, the utility called it “the first utility-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Malaysia.” (Sarawak Energy, 14 February 2025)
BESS Lahad Datu, on Sabah’s east coast, was inaugurated on 12 December 2025. It is a 100 MW / 400 MWh system procured by Sabah Electricity and built by MSR-Green Energy. The Chief Minister’s prepared remarks described it as the largest energy storage facility in Southeast Asia. (Energy-Storage.News, 12 December 2025; Malay Mail, 12 December 2025)
Tenaga Nasional Berhad held the commissioning ceremony for the Santong BESS — 100 MW / 400 MWh, with grid-forming inverters, at the Santong 132/33 kV main intake substation in Dungun, Terengganu — on 18 May 2026. TNB described it as the first grid-scale battery project to connect to the grid in Malaysia. (Energy-Storage.News, 19 May 2026)
Behind those three assets sit procurement programmes that are not alike. Set side by side, on the published record:
| System | Project or programme | Power | Energy | Duration | Stage, and date published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sarawak | Sejingkat BESS, Kuching (Sarawak Energy) | 60 MW | 82 MWh | ~1.4 h | Energised December 2024 |
| Sabah | BESS Lahad Datu (Sabah Electricity / MSR-Green Energy) | 100 MW | 400 MWh | 4 h | Inaugurated 12 December 2025 |
| Peninsular | Santong BESS, Dungun (TNB) | 100 MW | 400 MWh | 4 h | Commissioning ceremony 18 May 2026 |
| Sabah | RFP3: Segaliud and Kalumpang (Energy Commission of Sabah) | 2 × 100 MW | 2 × 200 MWh | 2 h | RFP launched, 20-year PPA, 2026 |
| Peninsular | MyBeST (Energy Commission) | 4 × 100 MW | 4 × 400 MWh | 4 h | Programme launched November 2024; four bidders shortlisted 19 December 2025 from 28 applications; commissioning targeted 2027 |
| Peninsular | LSS6 hybrid packages (PETRA / Energy Commission) | 1,250 MW | not stated in the ministry’s announcement | not stated | RFP documents sold 27 July – 28 August 2026; full commercial operation targeted by 31 December 2029 |
| Sarawak | next projects | no published figure | no published figure | — | Tenders “expected soon”, stated 29 May 2026; no site, size or date published since |
What does not line up, and what has never been published
Three claims to be first are three claims about three different systems. Malaysia’s transmission network is not one network. The Peninsular grid, the Sabah grid and the Sarawak grid are operated separately by TNB, Sabah Electricity and Sarawak Energy; the Peninsular grid has no interconnection to Borneo, while Sarawak exports about 30 MW to Sabah and about 100 MW to West Kalimantan (Sarawak Ministry of Utility and Telecommunication, 19 October 2026). Against that, the three statements do not conflict: each is a first on its own system. On dates alone, Sejingkat was first in the country, by a year. The terms used — “utility-scale”, “large-scale”, “grid-scale” — carry no definition in any published Malaysian regulation we could locate, so none of them can be tested.
The two LSS6 solar figures are also not a contradiction. The tender has been reported at both 2,500 MW and 2,650 MW of solar. The 2,500 MW is the two hybrid packages that carry a storage requirement (2,200 MW plus 300 MW); the 150 MW Bumiputera standalone solar package carries no storage and brings the total to 2,650 MW (The Edge Malaysia; SolarQuarter, 24 July 2026). Two scopes, one tender.
The LSS6 energy figure is a different case. The ministry’s announcement, as reported, gives the storage requirement only in megawatts: 1,250 MW, split 1,100 MW and 150 MW across the two hybrid packages. It states no megawatt-hour figure and no required duration. A figure of 1,250 MW / 6,000 MWh has circulated in trade coverage without attribution to PETRA or to the RFP document. We could not find the duration requirement in any publicly available primary document. Until it is published, 6,000 MWh should be treated as a trade-press figure, not a procurement parameter.
Across the four programmes, a megawatt of storage does not mean the same thing. Sejingkat is about 1.4 hours. Sabah’s RFP3 projects are specified at 2 hours. Lahad Datu, Santong and each MyBeST project are 4 hours. A state-by-state comparison in megawatts alone would rank Sabah’s RFP3 and MyBeST as equals per project; in megawatt-hours each MyBeST project is twice the size. The MyBeST shortlist announcement gives four projects at 100 MW / 400 MWh each; the Pekan project has separately been reported at 100 MW / 440 MWh, and the Energy Commission has not published per-project figures that would settle which is right.
Sarawak is the gap. Seventeen months after energising the country’s first utility-scale battery, Sarawak has no published figure for what comes next. The Deputy Prime Minister said on 29 May 2026 that Sarawak Energy was expected to open tenders “soon”. On 19 October 2026, in the State Legislative Assembly, the Sarawak Minister of Utility and Telecommunication set out a target of 15,000 MW of generation capacity by 2035 with at least 60% renewable, and listed 3,285 MW of projects under implementation — Baleh hydro at 1,285 MW, Samalaju CCPP at 1,500 MW, Miri CCGT at 500 MW. Battery storage was not among them, and no storage figure was given.
Prices are not public anywhere on this list. No availability payment, tariff or contract term has been published for Lahad Datu, for Santong, or for any of the four MyBeST projects. Sabah’s RFP3 publishes a 20-year PPA term but not the payment mechanism. The Lahad Datu construction contract was reported at RM645 million; what Sabah Electricity pays for the service was not. We checked the commissions’ documents, the operators’ releases and trade coverage; we did not find it.
What this means for the Malaysian market
Malaysia does not have one storage market. It has three, with different buyers, different rules and different ownership conditions, and a developer qualified in one is not automatically qualified in another. Sabah’s RFP3 is restricted to Sabah State Entities, requires a minimum 30% state-entity share, caps foreign ownership at 49% and requires 20% local participation. MyBeST ran an open shortlist against a single federal buyer. LSS6 bundles storage into a solar auction where the battery is a condition of the solar award rather than a product bought on its own terms. These are three different businesses that happen to use the same hardware.
The second thing worth noticing is who got there first. The two systems that have operating batteries are the two smaller ones, and the peninsula’s only grid-scale battery in service was built by the utility outside any competitive programme, while the 400 MW tendered under MyBeST has one construction start and nothing commissioned. Programme size has not been a good predictor of delivery date in this market; procurement design appears to have mattered more than headline capacity.
For anyone building a view of the national pipeline: use megawatt-hours, state which grid each number belongs to, and keep tendered capacity separate from capacity in service. On the public record those three disciplines change the ranking. And treat Sarawak as a gap in disclosure rather than a gap in plans — a state that has already built one battery and set a 15,000 MW target is unlikely to have no intention, but at the time of writing it has published no number anyone can model.
Figures verified 27 October 2026 against the sources named.
