Come May 2, a quota of an additional 65MW of renewable energy (RE) will be up for grabs for parties wanting to produce this under the feed-in-tariff (FiT) programme for 2014. The quota for 2015 is being increased to 109MW.
This is according to a statement by Energy, Green Technology And Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili, who said the quota release for 2014 marked an important milestone in the implementation of the FiT mechanism as Sabah and Labuan would be participating in the mechanism for the first time.
He reiterated that the RE sources that fall under the FiT include biogas, biomass, biomass (solid waste), small hydro and solar photovoltaics (PV).
Of the 65MW total RE quota of 2014, more than half of the allocation is for solar PV. Biogas and biomass would be allocated 10MW and 15MW respectively for 2014.
Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) has also announced that the RE quota for 2016 will be 190MW while for 2017 it will be 196MW. Maximus added that projects under the FiT had generated 2 per cent of the country’s total generating capacity.
This is based on 537.97MW of RE capacity approved under the FiT since 2010, compared with the country’s total electricity generating capacity of 27,179MW in the same period.
“Our target is for RE to constitute 5 per cent of the energy mix in 2015,” said Maximus.
Meanwhile, further refinements have been made to the FiT quota application process for large-scale solar PV exceeding 425kW.
Application for this category must be submitted manually to Seda. The application must comply with all existing requirements under the e-FiT system as well as other conditions that will be disseminated by Seda through its website and stakeholders engagement workshops.
The minister said that as at end-February 2014, RM4.8mil has been paid out to biogas, RM4.86mil to small hydro, RM37.8mil to biomass and RM40.9mil to solar PV.
