Weekly brief: 13–19 October 2026. Five items from the past week, with dates and sources. Figures are as published by the source named; where the public record is ambiguous we say so rather than resolving it. 13 October 2026 — First publicly announced construction start under MyBeST. Leader Energy began construction of a 100 MW / 400 MWh battery energy storage system at Pajam, Negeri Sembilan. It is the first of the four projects shortlisted under the Energy Commission’s MyBeST programme for which a construction start has been publicly announced. The other three have published milestones but not construction starts: the ERS Energy and ERS–Gamuda projects were reported on 10 June 2026 as having entered the “execution phase” after signing project agreements with the offtaker, and the Blueleaf Energy–Universal Peak project has reached financial close. (BusinessToday, 13 Oct 2026; SolarQuarter, 13 Oct 2026 and 10 Jun 2026) 12 October 2026 — ACE and IEA: the barriers are regulatory, not technical. Accelerating Battery Energy Storage System for vRE Integration, a joint white paper by the ASEAN Centre for Energy and the

Within weeks of each other, two of Southeast Asia’s largest state utilities opened the region’s biggest solar tenders to date. Malaysia’s LSS6 and Indonesia’s Mentari Nusantara I are comparable in ambition and timeline, but they differ on one design choice that matters more than either headline capacity number: whether storage is part of the procurement at all. What each tender actually covers LSS6, launched by Malaysia’s Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation (PETRA), carries a quota of 2,500MW of solar paired with 1,250MW of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity, plus a further 150MW of standalone solar reserved for Bumiputera companies. The programme is expected to attract RM13–15 billion in investment, with commercial operation targeted by 31 December 2029. Mentari Nusantara I, launched by Indonesia’s state utility PT PLN on 30 April 2026, covers 1,225MW of solar spread across six regions: Java (600MW), Kalimantan (340MW), Maluku and Papua (120MW), West Nusa Tenggara (80MW), Sulawesi (50MW), and Sumatra (35MW). It runs through a new procurement model called Giga One, which bundles multiple project sites into a single package to improve

Founder Group Limited, a NASDAQ-listed, Malaysia-headquartered EPCC (engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning) provider, has confirmed that its subsidiary Founder Energy Sdn. Bhd. is actively tendering for packages under LSS6, Malaysia’s largest-ever utility-scale solar tender. The announcement is a useful marker for anyone tracking who the real players will be as LSS6 packages get awarded. LSS6 is Malaysia’s largest utility-scale solar tender to date. The Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation (PETRA) launched it in July 2026 with a total quota of 2,500MW of solar capacity paired with 1,250MW of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity, plus a further 150MW of standalone solar reserved for Bumiputera companies. The programme is expected to attract between RM13 billion and RM15 billion in private investment, with commercial operation targeted by 31 December 2029. Who is Founder Energy? Founder Energy is not a new entrant. Since 2016, it has completed or worked on more than 70 solar EPCC and sub-EPCC projects across Peninsular Malaysia, spanning most phases of the government’s LSS programme, the Corporate Green Power Programme (CGPP), independent power producer (IPP) and Self-Consumption