PUTRAJAYA, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Yang Berhormat Tuan Wong Kah Woh, Chairman of Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia shared on the opportunities to spur the growth of renewable energy (RE) in the country and the success of the feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme.

The Government has set an ambitious target to achieve RE target of 20% in the national installed capacity mix by 2025 (excluding large hydro >100MW). During YB Puan Yeo Bee Yin, Minister of MESTECC’s speech during IGEM 2019, a total of 6,906 MW is required from 2019 to 2025 in order to achieve the said target. Given the time which is less than a decade and a huge gap to gauge with the total RE is 6% of the national installed capacity mix, SEDA is acting aggressively to achieve the national target. Despite the solar-centric schemes, SEDA has also initiated a few initiatives to boost the non-solar energy generation in the country.
 
Announcement of FiT’s Biogas Quota
The FiT scheme was traditionally offered at fixed tariff. After seven years of implementing the FiT scheme, SEDA Malaysia has progressed to improve price discovery of the tariff offered to the RE developers by way of competitive bidding. The inaugural e-bidding exercise for biogas was carried out in Q4 2018 (15 successful bidders have been recorded with a basic bid tariff from RM0.2210 to RM0.2814 / kWh).
 
Following that, SEDA Malaysia has carried the second e-bidding for biogas in July 2019. For the second biogas e-bidding, the basic bid ceiling tariff is RM0.2814/kWh.
 
Basic Bid tariff for successful bidders from RM0.235 to RM 0.2689/kWh. The highest successful bid is 4.44% lower than the ceiling tariff and there were 16 successful bidders for the second round of e-bidding biogas.
 
YB Wong also shared that the Phase 3 of Biogas (30 MW) e-bidding will be commencing in Q1 2020.
 
Savings as a result of e-bidding
The fixed basic tariff offered for biogas prior to the exercise of e-bidding was RM0.3184/kWh, with the effective rate of RM0.4669/kWh (inclusive of bonus rates). The Basic Bid tariff for successful bidders for the 1st e-bidding and 2nd e-bidding has brought down the price. The average effective rate for 1st e-bidding stands at RM0.4055/kWh and the 2nd e-bidding stands at RM0.4058/kWh (inclusive of bonus rates). This translate into a savings of RE Fund of RM12.949 million a year from the 1st e-bidding exercise, and RM12.536 million a year from the 2nd e-bidding exercise, compare to the fixed tariff offered prior to the e-bidding exercise.
 
Updates on Small Hydro Quota
According to YB Wong, SEDA wants to move away from the first come first serve quota allocation process for small hydro and one of the objectives of having the e-bidding exercise is to optimise the utilisation rate of the RE Fund through the process of price discovery.
 
Based on the inaugural e-bidding for small hydro, a total number of 19 bidders with a total capacity of 243.69 MW have applied during the small hydro e-bidding.
 
SEDA Malaysia will also make an announcement on list of successful bidders on small hydro e-bidding by December 2019.
 
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.
 
Source: Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA)
 
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Name: En Roslan Ali@Hassan
Director, Strategic Communications
Tel: 012-377 6983
Email: SC@seda.gov.my/roslan@seda.gov.my
 
--BERNAMA