KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 — Data centres in the country are consuming more power as temperatures rise, leaving a nine gigawatt (GW) gas-fired capacity gap for the government to fill by 2032.
Energy Commission chief executive officer Siti Safinah Salleh said the share of data centres in overall power consumption surged to a record 9.3 per cent in the second week of August, compared with an average of seven per cent this year.
"With the hotter weather, the cooling system requires a lot more energy," she said on Tuesday.
Economy Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir said Malaysia, as the region's fastest-growing data centre hub, is gradually phasing out coal-fired power and will have to augment its gas-fired capacity by nine GW by 2032.
"Malaysia plans to retire the last of its coal-fired power plants by 2044,” Akmal told reporters at an Energy Commission conference.
Malaysia is attracting billions of dollars in investments from major global tech firms including Amazon and Microsoft, leveraging its domestic gas reserves to address rising power demand this year and buck a regional decline in gas-fired generation as the Iran war chokes liquefied natural gas imports.
But with no additional gas-fired power expected to come online this year and next, Malaysia will "optimise" its current fleet to address rising demand until the end of 2027, Safinah said, without providing further details.
Safinah added taht said the energy commission did not anticipate hot weather persisting longer than early September, which she said resulted in higher power use.
"Because of the hot weather, our hydro dams are also at very low levels," she said.
