KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is expected to unveil a hydrogen economy roadmap by this month to utilise more renewable energy in the country.
The Ministry of Environment and Water (Kasa) and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (Mosti) were working together to come up with the roadmap, industry officials said.
Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corp (MGTC) chief executive ofifcer Tan Sri Shamsul Bahar Mohd Nor said the government should encourage foreign direct investments (FDIs) and domestic direct investments (DDIs) through policies and regulations to increase the use of renewable energy.
“Hydrogen is an energy carrier, so Malaysia should look into utilising the element, as well as looking at hydro and solar as sources of energy, as hydrogen can be carried and transported.
“This is the way that we would be working on how to decarbonise the nation, but if you look at the amount of work being done by the government, the government would set the policies as well as look at the regulations that could be improved upon so industry players would increase the amount of usage of renewable energy,” he added.
Shamsul was part of a discussion at Invest Malaysia KL 2021 webinar on “Rebuilding A Sustainable Economy Series 4: Renewable Energy – Decarbonising Malaysia” today.
According to Shamsul, regulations are crucial to encourage industry players to come in, and the ministries were hopeful that the buy-in from industry players would be tremendous, and their involvement amplified with the hydrogen economy roadmap.
Malaysia is looking at 31 per cent installed capacity of renewable energy, before raising it to 40 per cent by 2035.
He said utilisation of renewable energy plays a big part in economic sustainability, whereby economic growth has to be impactful enough that it covers the social, environmental and cultural aspects of the nation.
There are three key aspects in economic growth, which Shamsul refers to as the three Ps – people, planet and profit, and the people aspect is the most important whereby the government needs to look at how to increase prosperity for the people.
“If we are able to reduce energy usage in our operations, then we would be looking at the profit. So, the contribution of industry players should be looking very much into the protection of the environment on how to reduce the carbon and the way forward is to produce more green products,” he added.
He opined that Malaysia should look inwards on improving the innovation aspect as well as producing more green technology, as it is vital to the sustainability of the nation.
Part of the efforts is the Government Green Procurement (GGP), which is defined as procurement of products, services and works that take into account environmental criteria and standards for protecting the environment and natural resources and minimize or mitigate the negative effects of human activities.
By 2030, the government aims for 100 per cent of the GGP will be coming from green products, including construction building materials, solar panels, and usage of papers.
“By having the GGP, the government is moving towards purchasing green products, so we would welcome the private sector to move into the green industry, to move into the green technology products to be produced, because this would be key in the protection of the environment and this would be key in sustainability of the nation, and this is where the drive towards green growth should be on,” he said.
Source : NST