TNB

Data centres now hold 43% of Tenaga Nasional Berhad's contracted grid capacity, representing 5.9 GW across 38 approved projects in Malaysia as of June 2026. That concentration prompted Suaram director Kua Kia Soong to call for a moratorium on further approvals on 26 June, while Johor state had already rejected approximately 30% of data-centre applications on grid-capacity grounds.

TNB (Tenaga Nasional Berhad) is Malaysia's national electricity utility and the largest electricity company in South-East Asia, wholly owned by Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund. It generates, transmits, and distributes electricity across Peninsular Malaysia and has subsidiaries serving Sabah and Sarawak. TNB's contracted capacity of roughly 13.7 GW (implied by data centres holding 43%) supplies a grid that has attracted aggressive hyperscale investment, particularly in Johor, given that state's proximity to land-constrained Singapore.

The 43% concentration figure is the highest reported for any national utility in the 2026 data-centre investment cycle. The question for TNB is whether data-centre load growth can be absorbed without degrading supply quality for residential and industrial customers, and whether the utility's infrastructure can keep pace with the approval rate that federal policy has permitted. The Malaysian government faces competing pressures: data-centre investment brings foreign direct investment and fiscal revenue, while civil society organisations and some state governments argue the grid cannot sustain the current approval pace without compromising household supply.