How a Kuala Lumpur REIT mall deployed Huawei SUN2000-100KTL-M2 and Trina Vertex S+ 575W to cut RM 72k/month in TNB C2 charges
tCO₂ offset annually
“The anchor tenant's APAC sustainability director sent us a formal letter of commendation after we presented the FusionSolar generation data. They'd been asking for documented Scope 2 reduction for three consecutive lease renewal cycles. Eight months after commissioning, that conversation is closed — and two prospective anchor tenants cited our solar credentials during LOI discussions. The chiller load reduction alone justifies the investment; the brand effect is a bonus we hadn't fully priced in.”
A premium retail mall in Kuala Lumpur — managed by a listed REIT — had been fielding the same request from its largest anchor tenant for three years running: verified Scope 2 emissions reduction data to satisfy the anchor's global sustainability reporting obligations. The asset manager's problem was not unwillingness. It was capital cycle timing. A mall's major capital expenditure decisions are driven by asset enhancement initiative (AEI) cycles that run on five-year planning horizons, and solar had never made it to the top of the priority stack against more immediately revenue-generative AEIs such as food and beverage court upgrades and digital facade advertising systems.
What changed in 2025 was the convergence of two factors. First, Malaysia's Solar Accelerated Transition Action Programme (ATAP), gazetted under GP/ST/No.60/2025 and effective 1 January 2026, provided a transparent and predictable export tariff structure that materially improved the financial modelling for large C2-tariff commercial systems. Second, a prospective international F&B anchor tenant — during lease heads-of-terms negotiation — explicitly conditioned signing on evidence of a credible decarbonisation roadmap for the building. At RM 18 per square foot per month for 8,200 m² of net lettable area, the lease value made solar commercially prioritisable overnight.
A premium retail mall's electricity bill structure is dominated by a single equipment category: district cooling and precision air handling. This mall's 170,000 sq ft of air-conditioned retail, F&B, and cinema space required continuous chiller operation across four 600-tonne centrifugal chiller units. Chiller energy consumption consistently accounted for 58–64% of the total monthly TNB bill. The remaining load was split between escalators and lifts (11%), lighting (14%), food court ventilation and kitchen exhaust (9%), and general power (6%).
The chiller load profile had a particularly favourable coincidence with peak solar generation hours: 10:00–15:00 is both the period of maximum solar irradiance and the period of maximum chiller load, as the building's thermal mass absorbs the midday solar gain through glazed facades and skylights. This makes a mall the ideal candidate for solar offsetting — the generation peak and the consumption peak are nearly perfectly aligned.
Trexon's survey team spent four days mapping the mall's roof structure across its three main zones: the anchor department store wing, the F&B and entertainment block, and the covered carpark podium deck. The key finding was that the usable panel footprint was substantially larger than the asset manager had estimated — 9,200 m² of structurally adequate, solar-orientated rooftop was available across the three zones, well above the minimum needed for the 800 kWp system.
The complexity was not structural but logistical. A mall roof is a working environment: it houses cooling towers, smoke extraction fans, generator exhaust stacks, telecommunications antenna frames, and green roof sections maintained under a separate lease. Shading analysis using PVsyst 7.4 modelled the impact of each obstacle on generation yield and produced a panel layout that avoided year-round shading while working around the existing rooftop infrastructure without requiring any of it to be relocated.
PV Array: 1,392 × Trina Vertex S+ 575W
1,392 panels were installed in three distinct sub-arrays: 720 panels on the anchor store roof (Zone 1), 480 panels on the F&B and entertainment block roof (Zone 2), and 192 panels on the carpark podium perimeter (Zone 3). The Trina Vertex S+ 575W was selected for its IEC 61730-certified fire performance (Class A), which is a condition of the mall's building insurance policy for rooftop PV installations over occupied public spaces.
Inverters: Huawei SUN2000-100KTL-M2 ×8
Eight Huawei SUN2000-100KTL-M2 string inverters (100 kW each, 800 kW total AC capacity) were installed in two plantrooms: five on Zone 1 and three on Zone 2. The SUN2000-100KTL-M2 was selected for its smart IV-curve diagnosis function, which allows individual string-level fault identification without requiring a technician on the roof — important for a mall that cannot accommodate unplanned maintenance during trading hours.
FusionSolar Monitoring and Reporting
The Huawei FusionSolar SmartLogger 3000A provides unified monitoring for all eight inverters and integrates with the mall's BMS for demand management correlation. The platform was configured with three custom dashboard views: a public-facing digital signage feed in the main atrium showing real-time generation and cumulative CO₂ offset; an asset management portal with monthly performance-against-target reporting; and an ESG reporting module that exports monthly generation data in a format compatible with the GRI 302-1 energy consumption disclosure requirement.
The mall operates on TNB's C2 medium-voltage tariff, which required a grid-tie application under ATAP's commercial-industrial NEM 3.0 pathway. Trexon's in-house ATAP application team managed the Connection Agreement and Meter Installation Notice processes, including the Protection Coordination Study required by TNB for systems above 400 kW. Grid-energisation was achieved in April 2026 — five months from initial contract signing, including the Protection Coordination Study turnaround.
Under the ATAP Displaced Cost export rate, any generation in excess of the mall's instantaneous consumption (typically in the early morning before 09:00 on non-trading days) is exported to TNB at a defined rate. Trexon modelled the self-consumption profile against the generation forecast and confirmed that the mall's 24/7 chiller and security load ensures self-consumption above 91% year-round — minimising export dependency and maximising the value of each generated kWh at the consumption-avoided rate.
The installation was completed over eleven weeks (December 2025 – March 2026) under a strict operational continuity protocol. Key constraints managed:
Pre-commissioning thermal imaging of all module strings, combined with IV-curve tracing on a 5% random sample, confirmed no production defects prior to grid-energisation.
Generation performance:
Average monthly generation: 79,200 kWh — a specific yield of 1,188 kWh/kWp/year, marginally above the P50 design estimate of 1,175 kWh/kWp for KL's urban irradiance profile.
Financial performance:
Average monthly TNB bill reduction: RM 71,800. The reduction is predominantly from energy consumption savings (chiller load offset during peak solar hours), with a secondary contribution from marginal Maximum Demand reduction on days when solar generation reduces the 30-minute peak demand window during afternoon trading. Projected annual savings: RM 861,600. Simple payback: 6.8 years.
ESG and tenant relations:
The FusionSolar generation data was presented to the anchor tenant's APAC sustainability director in May 2026. The documentation — covering monthly generation, avoided emissions using Malaysia's 2024 grid emission factor of 0.694 kg CO₂/kWh, and cumulative CO₂ offset — was accepted as evidence of Scope 2 reduction progress under the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard (market-based method). The tenant formally withdrew its three-year standing request for a decarbonisation commitment.
Note: Financial figures represent indicative modelling based on Trexon installation data and TNB C2 tariff schedules. Specific client details are anonymised per B2B confidentiality.
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