Energy Commission's 31 Mar Dateline - Only 11 Charging Hubs Licensed So Far

Back in Dec 2022, The Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, YB Tuan Nik Nazmi bin Nik Ahmad announced during the launch of the Gentari EV Charging Hub at Bangi Golf Resort that all parties involved in developing EV charging infrastructure have to comply with the guidelines set by the Energy Commission (EC) to ensure public safety. One of this guideline is obtain a public energy distribution licence from the Energy Commission which would allow CPOs to charge based on kW consumed instead of the minute/hour a EV is plugged in.

He further mentioned that this is important to ensure EV chargers development in this country is safe and complies with the highest safety standards available. The EC would conduct regulatory checks based on its legal provision under the Electricity Supply Act 1990 (Act 447) to ensure this.

The commission has also published the "Guide on Electric Vehicle Charging System (EVCS)" as a reference document for all parties dabbling in the development of public charging facilities and potentially explore the "vehicle to grid" integration aspect to support the country's energy transition efforts.

However fast forward two (2) months later, we are noticing only three CPOs having been granted the EC licence. With less than two months left to the date of the dateline 31 Mar, over five hundred (500) other charging stations/hubs are yet to be licenced.

From the table below obtained from EC, we are able to see that of the 11 stations licenced, 6 are operated by EV Connection Sdn. Bhd. (Gentari), 3 by TNBX Sdn. Bhd. and one by Roda Emas Industries Sdn. Bhd. (Go-to-U).

With over 15 other registered Charge Point Operators (CPO) in the country and many other private/self operated charging facilities still in the midst of the licence application process, we at Caricarz.com could only guess that the set dateline would be too close and an extension would be necessary.

From some information we managed to gather, quite a few are still in the stage of obtaining their respective local council letter of approval which is needed as part of the EC licencing requirement.

Now with the government's ambitious 10,000 EV chargers nationwide by the year 2025 goal in mind, all the local authority and licencing bodies would have to seriously have another sit down amongst themselves to make all these licencing requirements more CPO friendly which will help spur this growth towards realising the 2025 goals.