Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda), which is empowered with the licensing of solar power plants, will be revising downwards the quota for all renewable energy (RE) sources for the remaining of this year.
The revision is mainly because the Feed-In Tariff (FiT) system for RE will be launched on Dec 1 and not Sept 1 as originally scheduled. Tentatively, the combined quota for renewable energy for 2011 is 111MW for all RE technology. The original plan is to offer 219 MW this year.
“We’re still looking at the numbers. It could be about 100MW this year and 200MW for next,” Badriyah Abdul Malek, the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry’s under-secretary for sustainable energy said at the sideline of at Sustainable Energy Forum 2011 organised by Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute yesterday.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is expected to launch the official portal of Seda at the upcoming International Greentech and Eco Products Exhibition and Conference Malaysia 2011.
Meanwhile, consumers would be paying the 1% levy to cover cost associated with the FiT scheme for RE from December.
Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin said the 1% levy was expected to rake in about RM300mil a year to facilitate the implementation of FiT. Seda had been given a grant of RM189mil to kick-start the FiT.
“With this fund, we are now poised to unlock the full potential of the RE industry. Malaysia is now leading within the Asean region because we have a systematic and structured approach for renewable energy development,” he said.
The Government hoped to gain the support and participation of the private sector in boosting RE output from its current 0.5% to 11% of fuel mix by 2020.
Only households consuming 300kWh a month will be affected by the RE levy. In total, 4.4 million households or 75% of Malaysians will not be affected.
Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry secretary-general Datuk Loo Took Gee said the grant of RM189mil was an advance payment from the Federal Government to Seda Malaysia to kickstart the FiT.
“The fund must be repaid to the Federal Government. There’s a great role to be played to educate the public to pay a little bit more but they get green energy,” she said.
