Sarawak, a state in Malaysia, aims to accelerate its green hydrogen leadership position after awarding a $17m engineering, procurement and construction contract to plant specialist Chloroplant, a member of the Marcon LC group.
The deal for the 10MW plant was signed with H1Hydro Group, a Singapore-based clean energy investment firm.
The plant will be constructed using European electrolysis technology, with phase one scheduled to commence operations in Q1 2026. Hydrogen storage and transportation technologies to be used are currently under discussion with companies from South Korea and Malaysia.
The production cost of hydrogen from this plant is expected to be “competitive” with other facilities in the Asia-Pacific region.
Sarawak contains excellent hydropower resources and its long-term vision is to become a clean energy hub in Asia, with as much as 20,000 MW capacity potential across 52 sites. The clean energy is being channelled into developing its hydrogen economy, for powering fuel-cell buses and cars and with an eye on becoming a major exporter.
Plans include establishing a green hydrogen container distribution business targeting Northeast Asian markets, including South Korea and Japan.
The Malaysian government has set an ambitious target to produce two million tonnes of hydrogen annually by 2030.
The nation’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) has revealed plans to scale this production capacity up to 16 million tonnes by 2050 under its Economy and Technology Roadmap (HETR).
However in most instances in the next seven years, Malaysia will focus on replacing grey hydrogen capacity with blue hydrogen, rather than green.
