KUALA LUMPUR: Securing project bankability and adapting conventional risk assessment approaches are among the challenges facing Malaysia’s renewable energy (RE) sector, despite the availability of green financing and financial institutions’ environmental, social and governance commitments.
Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia chief strategy officer Saiful Hakim Abdul Rahman said financial institutions need to re-evaluate how they assess risk for emerging green energy technologies, moving away from their current approach, which often relies on conventional risk management tools.
He said RE sources face different challenges depending on the resource type, whether solar, hydro or bioenergy.
“To create a feasible, bankable project is difficult because it is not only about the resources or mechanism, but also how to package it into a very bankable project.
“Most of the projects, even though they get proper resources and ideas, cannot really take off because they are not bankable,” he said yesterday at the International Sustainable Energy Summit 2026.
Saiful Hakim said SEDA is identifying potential clean energy resources across Malaysia, including small hydro, bioenergy, geothermal, wind, ocean biomass and tidal energy.
He added that SEDA is looking at the right mechanisms for different renewable resources, taking into account their varying costs and risks, to help the industry explore new resources and make projects more feasible and bankable.
By offering specialised support, he said SEDA aims to enhance project feasibility and enable financial institutions to manage risk without sidelining the RE sector.
Meanwhile on sustainable energy use by data centres, Saiful Hakim pointed out that geothermal energy could potentially support energy-intensive facilities, although the resource is costly to develop. — Bernama
