The Energy Commission of Malaysia has, on 12 March 2021, announced the list of shortlisted bidders (i.e. winners) of its fourth competitive bidding programme for development of large scale solar power plants (dubbed the LSS@MEnTARI and generally referred to by the industry as LSS4). The LSS4 was launched in May 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with a stated aim of stimulating the recovery of the economy. It was largely seen as an opportunity for those who were unsuccessful in LSS3 to repurpose their submission packages, and also as a move to placate grouses from local players that the outcome of the LSS3 programme did not result in enough jobs for local contractors and that the LSS3 programme was not favourable to local players.
The LSS4 was not without its own set of issues. For instance, there was confusion as to whether foreign participation would be allowed as the Energy Commission had issued conflicting views on this. Further, eyebrows were also raised when the LSS4 results were not released by the end of 2020 as results are traditionally announced at the end of the year in which the bidding round is held to allow shortlisted bidders sufficient time achieve Energy Commission-prescribed project milestones.
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