KUALA LUMPUR: SD Guthrie plans to expand its involvement in renewable energy (RE) under Malaysia's fifth large scale solar (LSS5) programme.

Group managing director Datuk Mohamad Helmy Othman Basha said SD Guthrie sees an opportunity to ride on the RE sector, especially solar projects which require land.

He said the company can play a more active role in the government's energy transition now by investing in solar farms, rather than just leasing its land to industry players.

"We believe that this is also a good move to reduce our carbon footprint. Although this seems unrelated to the plantation sector, we have to look at (optimising) our (land) assets," he said.

SD Guthrie has been involved in the solar business since LSS1 in 2018 by leasing one land for a 20MW project.

For LSS4, he said the company is leasing 12 plots of land to companies with a combined 336MW, which is 40 per cent of the scheme's quota.

On contribution from the RE projects, Mohamad Helmy stated that it is currently minimal.

"Looking ahead, we aspire to build, in the next two to three years, one gigawatt (GW) of power generation," he said.

To illustrate the return on investment, he said 1MW requires a RM2.5 million investment and hence, the 1GW is equivalent to a RM2.5 billion investment.

"We believe it can give us a return of high-single digits, meaning eight to nine per cent on a project basis," he added.

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