SHAH ALAM, July 23 (Bernama) -- Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia is in the midst of completing the second biogas e-bidding exercise and inaugural e-bidding for their small hydro power systems. This announcement was made by YB Puan Yeo Bee Yin, Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) during the launching of Goodyear’s solar PV system this morning. According to Minister YB Yeo, the aim of the e-bidding process is to facilitate price discovery for renewable electricity generated from the biogas and small hydro resources through healthy competition. Present at the announcement of the e-bidding was Ir Dr Sanjayan Velautham, CEO of Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia, the authority and implementor of the feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme.
 
Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Scheme
The FiT scheme was first introduced in December 2011 and implemented by SEDA. The concept of the FiT is to provide premium tariff to renewable energy (RE) developers to generate clean electricity and the tariff is secured for a fixed tenure of agreement. As at end of June 2019, SEDA has approved in total 12,540 FiT applications with total capacity of 1,744.38 MW (34.6% small hydro, 25.4% solar PV, 23.5% biomass, 14.4% biogas and 2.1% geothermal). At the same period, the total RE projects achieving commercial operation is 10,254 with total installed capacity of 621.96 MW (61.8% solar PV, 15.4% biomass, 11.5% biogas and 11.3% small hydro. As a result of the FiT, the estimated capital investment for the RE project is RM9.8 billion with an estimated CO2 emission avoidance of 3.3 million tonne (up to 2023). More information on the FiT can be found in http://www.seda.gov.my/reportal/fit/.
 
E-Bidding of Biogas & Small Hydro
The FiT scheme has traditionally offered tariff at fixed rate. After seven years of implementing the FiT, SEDA has progressed to improve price discovery of the tariff offered to the RE developer by way of competitive bidding. The inaugural e-bidding exercise for biogas was carried out in Q4 2018 and SEDA is into the second e-bidding for biogas for 2019. In the same period, SEDA will be conducting its inaugural e-bidding exercise for small hydro. The table below shows the schedule of e-bidding:



Interested applicants can submit their applications through the e-FiT online system (efit.seda.gov.my). Further information shall be announced by SEDA through its website in due course.
 

ABOUT SEDA MALAYSIA
 

Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia is a statutory body reporting to the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC). SEDA was established in September 2011 under the SEDA Act 2011 [Act 726] with the key purpose of driving the renewable energy and energy efficiency agenda in the country.