Friday, March 21, 2014

2014 FiT quota release announcement delayed

This is one conference I've really wanted to attend. Unfortunately the dates clashed with another pertinent event in Kuala Lumpur, the Asia Water 2014 Conference which is currently ongoing - 19th to 21st March 2014.


The Deputy Minister of KeTTHA and SEDA officials at the 2nd International Sustainable Energy Summit 2014 in Petaling Jaya.


Earlier this month, SEDA Malaysia announced in its portal that the new quota for its Feed-in Tariff (FiT) for 2014 would be announced during the 2nd International Sustainable Energy Summit, held in Petaling Jaya Selangor few days ago.


Delayed to refine FiT proposal

The announcement of the 2014 quota for its FiT programme for renewable energy would now be expected to be in April, at the earliest. Energy, Green Technology and Water ministry said this is to make some administrative adjustments.

The Malaysian Reserve reported that  a government official said the release of quotas for 12kW and below may be made as early as April but for larger projects exceeding 12kW, these may now be included in the 2015 quota. One reason why quotas for larger projects may be delayed is the amount of time it will take for some amendments to the Renewable Energy (RE) Act 2011 to be gazetted.

New legislation is needed because the threshold defining larger commercial non-individual photovoltaic (PV) projects has been brought down from 72kW to 12kW. These larger projects would need to go through a power system connectivity check by Tenaga Nasional Bhd, that would take at least 6 weeks, which can only be started once the legislation is gazetted.

Solar PV installations under 12kW do not need to undergo the connectivity test.

Some of the amendments proposed for Renewable Energy Acts 2011 are:
  • sections that involved the terms and operational requirements
  • FiT approval and FiT rates
  • recovery of money
  • redefining large commercial solar PV projects to include those beyond 12kW
  • regulating the solar PV service providers
  • inclusion of geothermal sources as a new RE source in the FiT programme


The Green Mechanics' two cents:

Since gazetted in 2011, the Renewable Energy Act has been revised almost annually to accommodate changing needs of the industry, which is good as we are only at an early stage of the implementation of green technology projects.

With the delay in announcement, it is fair to request that this year's roll-out be spread or extended to 2015 to give individuals and non-individual commercial holders of FiT approval sufficient time to complete their projects.

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