Renewable energy – or just a new master to serve?

Malaysia has a plan to turn old coal power plants into clean energy sites.

Deputy PM Fadillah Yusof announced this on 2 July at a World Economic Forum event on Malaysia’s energy future.

The idea is simple. Instead of shutting the plants down and leaving the land empty, the proposed framework aims to turn them into solar farms and battery storage hubs. The government calls this the National Coal Site Repurposing Framework.

On paper, this makes sense. Coal plants already have power lines, land and workers nearby. Why waste all that?

Malaysia wants to stop using coal by 2044 and get 70% of its electricity installed capacity from renewables by 2050. Reusing coal sites could help it get there faster and cheaper.

But there is a catch. If renewable energy does not grow fast enough, Malaysia may simply swap one dependency for another.

Instead of relying on coal, the country could end up relying more on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). That means more exposure to global price swings and international politics beyond our control.

As Fadillah himself warned, “Should renewable deployment fail to keep pace, there is a real risk that coal dependence may simply be replaced by greater reliance on imported LNG, exposing Malaysia to fuel price volatility and external geopolitical uncertainties.”

The Sarawak puzzle

Here is what makes this contradiction even stranger: while the peninsula faces tightening domestic gas supply, the country is also a major LNG producer off the shores of Sarawak.

Instead of using this to protect domestic markets, much of that gas is sold overseas at global market prices.

The peninsula, meanwhile, may become a net gas importer within the next 10 to 20 years, according to regional energy analysts.

So the choice we are being offered is not really ‘coal versus clean energy’. It is: which foreign-priced fuel do we depend on next?

That is not energy independence. That is swapping one imported risk for another, while our own gas continues to be sold away at prices we do not set.

Big plans, small steps

The government’s coal repurposing plan borrows ideas from South Africa and Europe, where old coal sites became clean energy or data centre hubs.

However, those countries have different institutions, financing systems and technical capacity than Malaysia presently has.

A good example of local progress is Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s Project Reach (Renewable Energy Applications for Clean Hydrogen) at the Jimah East coal plant in Port Dickson. So far, this includes a 500-kilowatt-peak (kWp) rooftop solar photovoltaic system and a 1-megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system. The initial zero-emission green hydrogen produced will be used for generator cooling at TNB’s thermal power plants.

It is a good first step. But it shows how far we are from the scale the government is promising.

TNB’s longer-term goal is to test different electrolyser technologies to find the most cost-effective, scalable methods for future national use, in support of the National Energy Transition Roadmap and TNB’s Net Zero 2050 ambition.

The plan also leaves the door open to nuclear power and small modular reactors. A government-linked agency, MyPower, completed a pre-feasibility study in 2024 saying nuclear power is technically possible. But “technically possible” is not the same as wise for Malaysia.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on strategic civil nuclear cooperation, signed with the United States on 10 July 2025, Malaysia gains support for technical expertise, regulatory development and workforce training.

Some analysts argue the deal steers Malaysia away from nuclear suppliers in Russia and China. Yet these are currently the only two countries with working commercial small modular reactors.

If that reading holds, Malaysia may be boxing itself into more expensive, less proven suppliers before fully working out the risks. As far as we can tell, no full study has combined all these pieces – cost, supply risk, water use and timeline – into one clear picture for the public and Parliament to see.

A missing team

This points to a bigger gap. Malaysia does not have a standing team whose full-time job is to plan for different possible futures – energy price shocks, delays or shifts in global politics – and to adjust national plans when needed.

Singapore has such a unit: the Centre for Strategic Futures, a think tank and foresight unit under the prime minister’s office. Malaysia does not.

Without this kind of team, big decisions such as “exit coal by 2044” or “go nuclear by the 2030s” get made through one-off studies and conference announcements. They are not tested by a system built to catch mistakes early, before billions of ringgit are spent.

None of this means the coal repurposing idea is wrong. Reusing land and power lines is common sense.

But good engineering is not the same as energy sovereignty. As Fadillah himself put it, a successful transition must reduce dependence, not merely shift it from one imported fuel to another. That is the right standard.

Whether Malaysia can actually meet it depends on work that has not yet been made public: a full study of our nuclear and gas options, whether we have the expertise and maintenance capability for the nuclear energy option, and a real team tasked with planning ahead rather than reacting to the next global shock.

Until then, ordinary people should ask: are we becoming energy independent, or just finding new masters to depend on?

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