en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Malaysian government has announced the sixth round of the Large-Scale Solar (LSS) tender, planning to deploy 2.5GW of solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants and 1.25GW of battery energy storage systems (BESS).

This tender, organized by the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation, constitutes the sixth LSS round. It will be implemented through three packages, two of which involve co-located deployment of solar PV and BESS.

The first package is open to all developers, planning to deploy 2.2GW of solar PV and 1.1GW of BESS. The second and third packages are reserved for Bumiputera developers in Peninsular Malaysia. The second package includes 300MW of solar PV and 150MW of BESS, while the third package is a 150MW standalone solar PV plant.

The bid size range for the two co-located packages is 60MW to 500MW, while the standalone solar PV package ranges from 10MW to 30MW. The Ministry of Energy stated that the standalone solar PV package is designed to encourage participation from small Bumiputera enterprises interested in entering the energy sector.

The bid submission window for the two solar-plus-storage packages is from July 27 to August 7, 2026, and for the standalone solar PV project, from August 17 to 28, 2026.

Project development will focus on strategic areas with rapid electricity demand growth, particularly in southern Peninsular Malaysia, to optimize the country's power generation and transmission system planning.

According to the Ministry of Energy, the construction of large-scale solar-plus-storage projects aims to enhance the stability, flexibility, and reliability of the national grid. Projects using domestically manufactured solar PV components will be given priority consideration. LSS6 awarded projects are expected to commence commercial operation by the end of 2029 at the latest.

As of the end of 2025, the country's installed solar PV capacity slightly exceeded 3GW. The LSS6 tender, seeking 2.5GW of solar PV capacity, will further drive this growth. Malaysia's focus on co-located solar PV and BESS is increasing, exemplified by the World Bank's investment last year in one of the region's largest solar-plus-storage projects. This $60 billion project plans to build a 4GW solar PV and 5.12GWh BESS complex in the Southeast Asian country, which will form part of a broader Southeast Asian grid plan.

The implementation of LSS6 is expected to attract between 13 billion and 15 billion Malaysian ringgit ($3.2 billion to $3.7 billion) in private investment and create up to 20,000 jobs during project development and construction.