This consists of 35% on an unconditional basis
and a further 10% conditional upon international
support. To this end, sustainable energy has been
identified as one of the key climate mitigation
solutions to reduce carbon emissions.
The Renewal Energy (RE) target under the
Eleventh Malaysia Plan of 2,080 MW has already
been factored into several RE programmes in the
country, e.g. feed-in tariff (FiT), large scale solar
(LSS) and net energy metering (NEM). The Ministry
and SEDA are also in the midst of coming up with
long-term plans and strategies to increase the
share of RE in the energy mix.
Renewable energy (RE) awareness varies
across the country. In urban areas RE awareness
is better, while awareness on energy efficiency
generally fares better compared to RE. The main
drivers towards sustainable energy are to address
climate change and national energy security.
However, surveys have shown that the public
awareness of climate change is greater compared
to national energy security. This is probably not
a surprise given that Malaysia has experienced
effects of climate change in the past few years
with the prolonged drought followed by sudden
extreme floods in certain parts of the country. The
politicians’ awareness of sustainability has risen in
the past few years with the committed Nationally
Determined Contribution (NDC) expressed at the
Paris Climate Accord at the end of 2015.
The Ministry and all its relevant agencies
are also continuously organising awareness
campaigns on matters related to RE. The themes
of these campaigns include green technology,
green lifestyle, GHG emission reduction, low-
carbon economy & practices, global warming
issues, etc. The Ministry and its agencies have
conducted many such programmes in schools and
to communities at large.
(a) Feed-in Tariff (FiT)
FiT was first implemented by SEDA on December
1, 2011. The FiT system obliges Distribution
Licensees (DLs) to buy from Feed-in Approval
Holders (FIAHs) the electricity produced from
renewable resources and sets the FiT rate. The
DLs will pay for RE supplied to the electricity grid
for a specific duration.
The renewable portfolio encompasses biogas,
biomass, solarphotovoltaic (PV), small hydro and
geothermal energy. The FiT has proven that RE is
viable and has the opportunity to scale beyond
token capacity. We have witnessed a paradigm
shift towards greater deployment of renewable
energy for power generation in the country.
The tables below show the progress of the FiT
as at end of January 2018.
Renewable
Resource
No. of
Appli-
cations
Biogas
127
Biomass
44
Small hydro 61
Geothermal 1
Solar PV
11,957
Total
12,190
Capacity
(MW)
221.42
396.19
540.48
37.00
441.02
1 ,636.11
(%)
13.53%
24.22%
33.03%
2.26%
26.96%
100.00%
Table 1: Cumulative Approved FiT Applications
Renewable
Resource
Biogas
Biomass
Small hydro
Solar PV
Total
No. of
Projects
31
8
6
9,249
9,294
Capacity
(MW)
58.23
87.90
30.30
357.83
534.26
%
10.90%
16.45%
5.67%
66.98%
100.00%
Table 2: Cumulative Approved FiT Projects
Achieving Commercial Operation
(b) Large Scale Solar (LSS)
The LSS auction programme started in 2016,
where the first round of tender took place. The
solar plant’s capacity ranged from 1 MW to
50 MW and the power is injected either to the
transmission or the distribution network. A total of
401 MW capacity was awarded to the successful
bidders at the end of 2016. These projects are
scheduled to be commissioned this year.
The second round of LSS tender was carried
out in 2017 with plant capacity range of between
1 MW and 30 MW. At the end of that year, a
total capacity of 557 MW was awarded to the
successful bidders. Projects from this round of
tenders are scheduled to achieve commercial
operation in 2019 and 2020. The second round of
LSS tender has seen a higher number of projects
awarded and lower bid prices from the bidders.
7