TNB to work closely with MyPower for industry reform

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) will work closely with MyPower, the special-purpose agency to be reactivated by the government for energy industry reform, to reduce the people's perception that it is a monopoly, said chief executive officer Datuk Seri Azman Mohd ( pic).

He said the utility giant has a lot of ideas and experience to contribute to the industry reforms in line with the government's Malaysia Energy Supply Industry (MESI) 2.0 programme.

Asked whether the industry would see drastic changes following the implementation of MESI 2.0, he said it would do good for the industry as well as disconnect the monopoly image from TNB.

“The market views us as monop- olising the market, and people have perceptions that we are lazy and incurring more cost, but in actual fact we like more competition because it proves we are more competitive,” he told reporters during a press conference after the general assembly meeting yesterday.

The meeting was held in conjunction with the Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry (Cepsi) 2018. Azman added that TNB has achieved its key performance index, including a reliability indicator for electric power utilities – the supply average interruption duration index which puts TNB in the developed country group in terms of performance. He also said the meeting decided that another emerging economy, the Philippines, will be hosting the biennial Cepsi, followed by China.

Meanwhile, earlier in his opening speech, Azman noted that TNB hosted the conference in Kuala Lumpur 22 years ago.

“We were known as the Central Electricity Board and the power generation installed capacity was a mere 40 MW serving 46,000 customers, but now the installed capacity in Peninsular Malaysia is 25,000 MW with TNB having more than 13,000 MW serving 8.8 million,” he added.

This shows that the industry is rapidly changing on a daily basis, unlike 20 years ago when it was a very predictable industry, he said, noting the importance for industry players to meet and discuss with greater frequency. — Bernama