With the Government of Malaysia as its majority stakeholder, power utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has established a new renewable energy platform with its geographic focus on the UK and Europe, calling it Vantage RE Ltd. TNB said Vantage is an 'acceleration' of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) push and its involvement in the UK's energy sector.
Vantage is constituted as a renewable energy investment and asset management company to own, operate and manage a portfolio of renewable energy assets in the regions where it will operate. TNB said the immediate growth plans of Vantage involve acquisition of subsidized renewable obligation certificates (ROC) and feed-in-tariff (FIT) assets across the UK and Ireland.
The new platform is pinning its hopes on 'conducive government policies, growing global ESG demand and rapid preference for RE as the mainstream energy source' to grow rapidly as a global renewable energy player. Currently, it has a total wind portfolio of 26.6 MW capacity, and TNB shared that the newly established company has built a sizeable acquisition pipeline of operational assets, including those to be acquired via competitive bidding.
TNB's President and CEO Datuk Ir. Baharin Din shared that with Vantage's establishment, the group is on track to achieve the overall target of 8.3 GW of TNB's renewable energy capacity. The company said it is open to exploring opportunities with equity partners to support its international business growth.
Vantage will be headquartered in the UK and will be led by Vian Davys who previously worked with E.ON/Uniper, and CLP Group, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Vantage would be the other renewable energy platform for TNB that took a 55% stake in UK based Vortex Solar with 365 MW solar power capacity in September 2020 (see Malaysian Utility Invests In UK Solar PV Platform). It followed up this acquisition with a collaboration with Sunseap Group of Singapore where it is venturing into corporate power purchase agreements (PPA) space (see Malaysian Utility Expands To Singapore With Sunseap).