KUALA LUMPUR: Edra Power Holdings Sdn Bhd plans to set up an international institute in Malaysia to cultivate local talent in renewable energy under the aegis of its parent company, China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN).
It will be one of eight such training institutes in CGN’s active exploration for international talent training methods to support its worldwide operations.
“CGN Energy International Institute (CGNEI) is CGN’s platform for overseas clean energy. It will centre on Malaysia and spread to countries along China’s Belt and Road initiatives like Europe and America to utilise CGN Group’s 40 years of training expertise and resources, combining talent cultivation best practices of each regional companies and supporting CGN’s global clean energy development,” said CGN University executive vice president Zhang Guo Qiang.
He said with the establishment of the institute in Malaysia in collaboration with Edra, CGN would play an active role in developing local talent requirement as Malaysia moved towards the realm of renewable energy.
Malaysia’s Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin was reported as saying recently that the country was getting ready to make a transition towards renewable energy in order to make the environment more sustainable, competitive, efficient and greener.
She said the transition would be possible after Malaysia signs the global initiative RE100 Agreement probably in January next year. RE100 is a Global Electricity Initiative that brings together influential businesses to 100 per cent renewable electricity with the aim to accelerate change towards zero carbon grids, at the global scale.
“We will have the framework ready and announce it in a few months’ time,” Yeo told reporters.
Zhang told Bernama that CGN’s talent cultivation initiative had grown the group to be a leader in clean energy and the expertise, skills and technical know-how would give CGNEI a head-start in local talent cultivation.
He said CGN, China’s largest and the world’s third largest nuclear power operator as well as being the world’s largest nuclear power station builder, had for the past 40 years been striving to develop clean energy and with the proposed institute in Malaysia, the group was now poised to support the development of high quality talent and clean energy in the country.
“The training centre in Malaysia will be an important regional training centre. CGNEI will invest heavily on the development of training facilities and programmes to create high quality talent pool for Edra and local communities to support Edra’s clean energy strategic development,” Zhang added.
Edra, a subsidiary of CGN, is one of South East Asia’s leading international independent power producers with 13 power and desalination plants in Malaysia, Egypt, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan.
He said this was in line with Belt and Road countries’, including Malaysia, continuous focus on clean energy.
“And with Malaysia being part of the Belt and Road countries, the programmes offered will greatly assist Malaysia’s transition towards renewable energy, increasing its expertise and technological know-how to that of global practices and requirements, at par with the requirement of the Belt and Road initiative,” he said. –Bernama
