Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
#AEBF25 | Day 1 - Unlocking RE for ASEAN | ASEAN Centre for Energy | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: #AEBF25 | Day 1 - Unlocking RE for ASEAN
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
Gamuda Engineering, a traditional infrastructure player, is strategically pivoting to become a significant force in the renewable energy sector across ASEAN and Australia, driven by global megatrends like AI, electrification, and corporate sustainability.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
to invite Mr. Justin Chin Jingho, the
managing director of Gamuda Engineering
to deliver [music] his keynote address
titled Unlocking Renewable Energy for
ASEAN. [music]
Excellencies, leaders from ASEAN member
states, uh my good friend Vinnie,
director general for Southeast Asia ADB,
distinguished delegates, guests, ladies
and gentlemen. A very good morning
everyone. Uh my name is Justin Chin and
I'm the managing director of Gammuda
Engineering. It's an honor to deliver
this keynote at the ASEAN Energy
Business Forum on behalf of Gammuda,
especially in the presence of so many
like-minded people and organizations.
A lot have been has been said about the
APG this morning, so I'll promise I'll
talk about something a little bit
different uh and share our observations
from working around the region.
For those unfamiliar with us, Gamuda is
Malaysia's largest construction company
with a market cap of over 30 billion
ringit uh or about 8 billion US. As we
approach our 50th anniversary next year,
we look back on five decades of
delivering innovative breakthrough
infrastructure solutions across the
region. We are currently developing and
constructing over 15 billion USD of
critical infrastructure across
Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and of
course, back home here in Malaysia. We
also have a 30-year history of doing
PPPs across APEC. Interestingly, not
many in the hall today would describe
Gamuda as an energy player. Our goal
today is to change that perception.
So starting around 2019 and moving into
the 2020 COVID years, uh even on our
traditional infrastructure projects, we
began to sort of notice some interesting
shifts. A perfect example is the Galib
Batu multi-story bus depot which we
recently completed for Singapore's land
transport authority. Uh this bus depot
was initially designed with a capacity
for over 600 regular buses but somewhere
midway through the project around 2022.
Uh Singapore decided to convert it into
an electric bus depot. So obviously
substantial redesign was required to
incorporate the EV charging
infrastructure uh you know including the
advanced fire protecting protection
systems and water curtains to manage the
unique risk of EV fires.
And we also saw some different shifts in
our Taiwan business as well. Uh for many
years in this market, we were building
uh tunnels for metros and rails. But in
recent years, we started winning a lot
more contracts to build tunnels for
transmission instead. Uh one of our
recent contract awards was to build the
345 KV underground transmission line in
Tai Chong. the project on the left uh
which we're building to deliver
renewable energy to Taiwan's most
advanced chipmaking hub for customers
like TSMC
and of course a sizable part of our
construction order book uh in recent
years has been dedicated to building
hypers scale AI data centers. Our
multiple big tech DC clients are very
impatient people and demand that we
build these facilities faster and faster
as they try to get ahead in the AI arms race.
race.
Uh Malaysia as you all know has become a
hot spot for data centers thanks to our
pro proactive government policies in
attracting these multinational
investments as well as the read readily
available power water and land.
So even in our our traditional
construction business we were feeling
the clear impacts of the global mega
trends of AI of electrification and
corporate sustainability.
It became obvious that this was a
pivotal moment for us to move into the
renewable energy sector or risk being
left behind.
Gamura as some of you may be aware is
very active in the Australian market and
I just want to share this graph with all
of you uh from AMO's electricity sector
statement of opportunities 2025. Uh from
the earlier projected baseline from just
a few years ago indicated uh by the blue
line uh which is relatively flatish
without too much demand growth. Uh the
latest projections indicate that demand
may actually triple by 2020 2055
primarily driven just by DC and EV
adoption. So quite a huge jump from just
a few years ago.
Uh bringing the focus back to our home
region according to the International
Energy Agency ASEAN alone will account
for 25% of the increase in global energy
demand to 2035. And this is precisely
why the IEA for the first time in its
50y year history uh has set up a
regional office outside its parish HQ uh
right here in Southeast Asia in Singapore.
Singapore.
Uh recognizing this once in a generation
opportunity uh Gamuda began our
renewable energy journey just over 3
years ago. For a major infrastructure
player like us, this was quite a natural
and seamless progression. The same
end-to-end delivery expertise in civil
engineering in design me uh interface
project management and financial
modeling which we honed on mega
infrastructure projects and PPPs is now
being deployed to develop and build
large scale solar wind batteries uh
battery storage and transmission assets
across the region.
In just three years, this strategic
pivot has resulted in a robust and
growing 3 gawatt pipeline for our group.
Today we have the privilege of building
the largest solar wind and battery
hybrid plants in a number of Australian
states as well as critical transmission
infrastructure like the Mariners link
connecting Tasmania and Victoria. We're
also the largest hydro IP in Malaysia
currently constructing the Uluadas
hydroelect electric dam in Sabah. So
once in a while when I still hear things
like what Gamuda is in energy I had no
idea. My response would be yes. We most
certainly are and in a very big way.
We believe that our regional presence in
this sector which extends even be beyond
the political and economic boundaries of
ASEAN gives us a differentiating
perspective if I can call it that. Each
country is at a different stage of its
clean energy transition shaped by its
own blend of industry, politics and
geography. A one-sizefits-all approach
won't work and each nation requires a
tailored strategy that considers not
only its national context but regional
ones as well. So we'd like to share some
interesting key observations from our
experience working across the region.
To date almost every ASEAN member state
has announced a net zero emissions
target. The timelines and framing vary.
Note the optimistic or sooner qualifier
on some and this is to be expected as
every nation must balance its climate
ambitions with economic development,
grid stability and unique resource
availability. While the momentum is
building, one thing is constant across
the board. Uh and this is that for every
Asan Assan nation a far greater effort
is required to meet their national goals.
goals.
Australia also has a 2050 net zero
target but with a crucial difference.
Their net zero target is legislated and
enshrined in the climate change act
2022. So it isn't just a national
pledge. It's a legally blinding
commitment. And looking at the emissions
trajectory, you can see the steady
progress since 2005.
However, the graph also makes it clear
that the pace of decarb decarbonization
must accelerate significantly even in
Australia to meet the 2050 target.
And and this legislation is actually a
very powerful catalyst. It creates
certainty and drives a whole of
government approach and the impact on
investment is undeniable. In just the
last seven years, Australia has seen a
10-fold increase in renewable energy
investment. And when policy leads with
conviction, unsurprisingly, capital will
follow with confidence. Our Gamura
Capital included.
And of course, when investment pours in,
market dynamics evolve. With more plants
being built, the competition for grid
connection points intensifies. And this
forces new projects to be located
further and further away from load
centers requiring connections at higher
voltages. To offset these higher
connection costs, the commercials
dictate that the projects themselves
must get bigger. And this trend towards
larger and larger developments has been
further enabled by the falling cost of
solar and wind. We at Gamoda of course
love the scale at which we can operate
in the Australian market because we're
set up to be more efficient at these
scales. uh which is unsurprising given
our bread and butter of delivering
multi-billion dollar infra projects
across the region. We're now building
many of the largest solar wind uh hybrid
plants in Australia, all of which are at
least a few hundred megawatts in size.
We're also seeing a very rapid evolution
in energy storage. In the past, one or
two hour batteries were much more
common, primarily used for frequency
control services to smooth out
short-term fluctuations in the grid. And
now as battery costs decline, longer
duration storage is becoming more
commercially viable and the market
standard is quickly shifting towards
4-hour systems designed for energy
arbitrage and firming renewable output.
This shift is very evident in Australia
but also in Malaysia where we're very
encouraged to see in the recent my best
tenders as well as in the crest program
that a 4-hour best is specified
and even longer duration storage is
emerging. Traditionally mechanical
storage storage like pumped hydro was
dominant for longer duration energy
storage. For example, the Capricornia
pumped hydro project in Queensland which
we are developing together with CIP is
designed for 16 hours of storage.
However, these projects face significant
challenges. Long construction timelines,
extremely complex engineering, high
upfront costs, and lengthy environmental
approvals. Projects like Snowy Hydro 2.0
Zero in Australia have highlighted this
risk with significant cost and program overruns.
overruns.
In contrast, best is modular. It's
faster to deploy and costs continue to
fall. However, it does have a shorter
operational life.
Our 585 megawatt Goben River solar farm
which we are building for light source
BP is uh set to be the largest hybrid
solar and battery plant in New South
Wales and when completed it will have a
10-hour best. The industry is now at a
quite a fascinating intersection. Uh
we're weighing the sort of long-term
resilience of pump hydro with a
100red-year design life against the
everinccreasing flexibility and falling
cost of batteries. The technology
landscape is also involving uh evolving
rapidly with new chemistries uh for
example like flow batteries potentially
offering the best of both worlds. So
this will be a very interesting space to watch.
watch.
We also need to be thinking more about
the role of AI and cloud computing in
managing the sheer complexity of the
modern energy grid uh which is growing
at both ends of the spectrum. On one
end, we're building massive utility
scale renewables and the integration of
these intermittent power sources uh
requires a new level of sophistication.
On the other end, we're seeing a surge
in decentralization with additional
complexity uh coming from aggregation of
smaller assets like rooftop solar and
EVs with more unpredictable birectional
energy flows.
And this is where AI and the cloud have
become indispensable. They provide the
intelligence needed to orchestrate
everything in real time and keep the
system stable.
As this digital intelligence becomes
deeply embedded in our critical
infrastructure, it raises new important
questions around data security and
sovereignity. And for answers to this
question, please visit our Gamuda booth
in the main exhibition hall. We have
answers to that too.
And this brings us to a fascinating
paradox. The AI boom is undeniably one
of the biggest drivers of new renewable
energy demand. Yet AI is also the very
tool that can unlock unprecedented
efficiencies across the entire energy
and climate spectrum. It's not just
about making the grid smarter. Uh but AI
is accelerating the discovery of new uh
new materials for batteries and carbon
capture. It's optimizing global supply
chains to cut emissions and making our
cities and industries vastly more energy efficient.
efficient.
So this leaves us with a
thoughtprovoking challenge. Can the
systemic efficiencies that AI unlocks
across our entire economy outpace the
energy it consumes? Can the intelligence
we are building become the very key to
solving the energy challenge it created?
Will AI one day achieve energy
neutrality? Food for thought.
So what does this all mean? Simply put,
the opportunity in front of us is an
opportunity of a generation. To align
with global climate goals, ASEAN needs
to add 382 gawatt of renewable energy
capacity by 2035. This translates to an
annual investment of 56 billion needed
every year until 2030. The sheer scale
of this transition is too big for any
single company or government. It demands
a new era of collaboration. There's a
role for everyone in the room. for
engineers, for constructors, for
financiers, for corporations that buy
this clean energy and for governments
who enable the necessary frameworks. The
opportunity is enormous, and the success
requires each of us to find our unique
place in the chain and work together to
drive ASEAN's energy goals.
And this is why Gamuda strategy is built
on forging powerful collaborative
partnerships. We've invested in ERS
Energy, one of the region's top solar
EPCC's, building some of the largest
solar farms across ASEAN. We're
collaborating with Genturi, Petronas's
independent clean energy solutions
entity with a 9 gigawatt portfolio
across APEC. We've partnered with SD
Gatri, one of the world's largest
plantation companies to unlock their
vast strategic land banks for RE
development. And we work with leading
global energy partners like Aula Energy,
like source BP and CIP, not as the EPCC
contractors, but as their long-term
delivery partners and builders of choice.
choice.
The energy transition has many facets
and requires a diver a diverse range of
skills. And this is why we're building
an ecosystem of dynamic partners who
have complimentary strengths and share
our ambition.
I'll tell you a funny story. Uh when we
first expanded our RE business to
Australia, we were quite excited. We
looked at their open market uh you know
with dynamic spot prices and merchant
opportunities and we thought wow this is
where the real action is. So different
from the boring closed energy market in
Malaysia. Then not too long into our
journey or one fine day one of our
Australian partners said something that
caught me completely by surprise. He
said, "Justinine, I can't understand
what you all are doing here in
Australia. I'd rather be doing re in
Malaysia." And I was confused. So, he
explained. He was so envious that our RE
market in Australia is premised on
long-term fixed uh price PPAs. He
observed that investment in Malaysia is
stable, is bankable, and financing is
relatively easy with good access to deep
and healthy capital markets. And
meanwhile in an open market like
Australia, you have the headache of
merchant risk. So much so that the
Australian government had to step in
with the capacity investment scheme just
to provide a flaw a revenue flaw for projects.
projects.
So that's when it really hit me. The
grass isn't always greener on the other
side. Each market is different with its
own risks and rewards. And the ones who
will get ahead will be those who can
best understand that risk and structure
investments that align with the unique
One of the most powerful drivers of this
transition is corporate demand. As you
can see, six of the world's eight
largest corporate buyers of renewable
energy are active right here in Assean.
Companies like Google, Microsoft, and
Amazon are building massive AI data
centers and have ambitious goals to
power them with 24/7 carbon-f free
energy. Their huge constant demand and
strong credit ratings make them the
perfect anchor customers to get large
scale renewable projects financed and
built with long-term PPAs.
So, how do we connect this massive
corporate demand to the supply of new
green renewable energy in Malaysia? The
answer is the corporate renewable energy
scheme or crest. We see crest is a
brilliant piece of policy from our
friends at Petra and the energy
commission that kills three birds with
one stone. First, the clear framework
directly addresses the huge energy
demand from AI data centers, securing
securing Malaysia's place as a top
destination for digital investment.
Secondly, it helps fund grid upgrades.
Under crest, developers pay a system
access charge and this creates a
dedicated fun uh funding stream for the
necessary grid upgrades to handle this
new variable RE. And third, of course,
it accelerates Malaysia's national re
and decarbonization targets. Smart
marketdriven policy that aligns
corporate, national, and infrastructure
goals for Gammuda. Crest provides the
clearest path to aggressively scale our
re portfolio in Malaysia. So do come and
talk to us if you're interested in
buying a few terowatt hours of clean power.
power.
However, while the opportunity is huge,
the path forward has its challenges.
Energy players are facing significant
global headwinds. As these headlines
show, we're navigating major supply
chain constraints with lead times for
critical components like transformers
stretching for months and years.
Geopolitical risks such as new tariffs
and trade wars disrupt the cost and
supply of equipment. And even if you can
secure your financing and equipment,
projects can get stalled. We see
examples where hundreds of megawatts of
renewable capacity get stuck across the
region waiting for great connections or
regulatory approvals. Navigating these
issues will require deep delivery
expertise and resilient partnerships.
Finally, perhaps the biggest challenge
of all is talent. The unprecedented
scale and speed of the energy transition
has created a global war for talent. We
need more engineers, more project
managers, more data scientists even and
a larger skilled workforce to build and
maintain these assets. The availability
of skilled people is quickly becoming
the single biggest factor limiting growth.
growth.
To close, I'd like to leave you with
this image of the Ulu Padas
hydroelectric dam in Sabah, a project
that's particularly close to my heart.
Behind this single picture is a universe
of complexity, giving a sense of the
challenges we must overcome to bring
these critical projects to life. The
picture you see up on the screen is not
an artist impression. It's an it's a
highly accurate digital twin of the
project built to scale with drone scans
and GIS data. Even every single tree is
mapped to its exact height. And this is
the actual model our teams use for
construction planning. The digital
engineering challenge alone is immense.
But beyond the screen, our teams are
navigating other real world challenges.
These range from geotechnical hurdles
like tunneling through fault zones to
designing for climate resilience and
protecting our friends the sun bears as
well as securing long-term financing
that makes green energy viable against
subsidized fossil fuels. All guided by
the internationally recognized
hydropower sustainability standard.
Ulup Padas is a powerful reminder of
just how exciting and multiddisciplinary
this work is requiring requiring digital
engineers, geologists, environmental
scientists, financiers and governments
to all come together to deliver a single project.
project.
And this brings me back to my final
point. The complexity of projects like
Ulu Padas proves that no single
organization can do this alone. The
energy transition is not a simple value
chain. It's a complex ecosystem of
stakeholders as you can see represented
here. The opportunity is so vast that
the challenge for every person and every
organization is to identify where we can
create the most value. For Gamuda, we're
still on their journey, but we're
beginning to find our place.
ASEAN's clean energy transition is a
powerful economic driver for the region.
Gammuda will play an integral role by
applying our end-to-end engineering and
development expertise to deliver the
critical renewable energy and
sustainable infrastructure that will
underpin this growth. We're all still in
the early stages of this great
transition and the opportunity ahead of
us is immense. The future of energy in
ASEAN is something we must all build
together. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much, Mr. Justin Chin. Will
AI neutrality o ever happen? Food for
thought indeed. Can something trained on
our own imperfections [music] ever be
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
