KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 9): Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) (KL:TENAGA), Malaysia's largest utility company, views data centres as highly attractive customers for its infrastructure projects, offering excellent returns on investment (ROI).

"When it comes to building infrastructure, data centres are the best customer for us because the return on investment (ROI) is going to be very good,” TNB president and CEO Datuk Megat Jalaluddin Megat Hassan told a panel session at the Malaysia Economic Forum 2025 on Thursday.

Megat Jalaluddin said their consistent energy consumption, as reflected in the constant load factor throughout the day, make them ideal customers.

While these power guzzling data centres lead to increased power demand, Megat Jalaluddin said its planned grid updates will cater to this.

It was previously reported that TNB expects to see electricity demand from data centres reach 5,000MW by 2035, accounting for 15-20% of total electricity demand in the country then.

More recently, the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation projected that electricity demand for data centres would hit 20.9GW by 2040.

Peak total energy demand last year stood at 20,066MW on July 25, according to ring-fenced Single Buyer within TNB, which acts as the sole buyer of electricity from power generators in the country.

On nuclear energy, Megat Jalaluddin said the group sees it as a potential replacement for coal-based power generation.

“This is something we can explore technology-wise, if we are going to do away with coal — unless we have carbon capture technology in,” he said.

“I think it is imperative that we search for new, clean power generation. I think nuclear power is one potential clean generation the country can look at and possibly adopt in the future,” he said. 

TNB’s shares fell 20 sen or 1.4% to RM14.12 on Thursday, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM82.31 billion. The stock has gained over 33% in the past year.