Smart Energy Asia – Seda

The Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) has received approval for an additional one percent tax on the renewable energy fund in addition to the current one percent already on power bills.

Currently, consumers in Peninsular Malaysia using more than 300kWh a month are paying a one percent tax, called a feed-in-tariff, to independent renewable energy power producers. When the new levy is implemented, those consumers consuming in excess of 300 Kh a month will now will have to pay a two percent feed-in-tariff.

Chief executive officer Badriyah Abdul Malek told The Star, “We’ve already received the two percent approval but it remains in the Government hands to increase the one percent. I can’t tell either when will it happen. Tariff is very much a political thing in Malaysia. The Government will have to decide when the tariff will be increased. We were supposed to get a tariff revision every six months but there was no such announcement last December and the next revision will be in June. And with the imminent general election we don’t think it will be (revised).”

The current one percent tax established to cover costs associated with the feed-in-tariff initiative comes to approximately RM300 million ($98 million) ever year. To initiate the feed-in-tariff, Seda had been given a grant of RM189 million ($62 million).

Chief operating officer Ali Askar Sher Mohamad proposed independent power producers and utility companies to contribute a small portion of their profits to the renewable energy fund

By early March, Seda had approved 377 renewable energy applications with installed capacity of 311.56MW; of that, 140.03MW installed capacity was from solar photovoltaic (PV). Although there is growing interest in biomass, there have been no proposals submitted.

The Star reports that COO Ali Askar says, “There’s a great interest in landfill but has no takers for palm oil mill effluent (POME) due to small capacity and grid connection issues.”