Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Testing of Feed-in Tariff Application

Poor Very poor response.

That was my conclusion of the 3-day Gamma Testing of Feed-in Tariff Application on the e-FiT Online System. Only 50 nos feedback received as at the time of this posting, including myself.

FIT feedback1
My response page to SEDA


Say, 10% of the population (28.3mil in 2010) is aware of the Government Renewable Energy (RE) initiative and incentives. That would be 2.83 million and as we don't expect every 'aware' person to respond we'll take a 1% as poor. A humble one percent is 28,000 but would you actually believe that out of 100 persons being aware of a rewarding initiative only 1 or less person would respond?

If I tell 100 farmers that I have been blessed yesterday with a lot of money and I would reward anyone for planting paddy according to a prescribed method and for achieving certain quantity of rice produced, I am quite sure half of them would at least ask what sort of reward and how much can they expect to get in return.

In the case of Malaysia Feed-in Tariff, the lack of response from the public is a strong indication that the population at large is not aware of such reward program. What we hear on the mainstream media is the government's commitment to reduce the CO2 emission and the policies drafted to achieve this. What we don't hear is that you and me can take part in achieving this and at the same time reaping monetary benefit from our participation.

Energy Commission is quite aggressive in promoting energy efficiency in this country, and SEDA should emulate EC's effort by:

  1. Conducting nationwide workshops, seminars and trainings on Renewable Energy initiatives, its objectives and their benefits to the people,
  2. Gamma test - redo the gamma test during weekdays, after publicizing it through the mainstream media,
  3. Advertisement - consider this as business venture and advertise it periodically. Don't keep things at SEDA office.

I have mentioned nationwide but I'll stress it again that SEDA need and must conduct seminars and promotional activities in Sabah and Sarawak. After all these two are the least served states in Malaysia in terms of electricity supply.

Give them alternatives to generate their own electricity through Renewable Energy.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

ONLINE Testing of Feed-in Tariff

Image source: SEDA Malaysia



SEDA Malaysia will release a test version of the e-FiT Online System for Gamma testing on the Feed-in Tariff Application.







The online test will be carried out as follows:

Date: 10:00 am 5th Nov 2011 to 5:00 pm on 7th Nov 2011.
URL: www.seda.gov.my/gamma (to be activated at 9:55 am on 5th Nov 2011)
Send in your feedback by : 8th Nov 2011.

Members of the public are welcome to test and provide their feedback to SEDA Malaysia by Tuesday, 8th November 2011 to fit@seda.gov.my or by filling the feedback online form :

Feedback on the Feed-in Tariff Application via the e-FiT Online System

If Feed-in Tariff (FiT) is new to you, you may want to read about it here:

1) Incentive for Renewable Energy
2) Generate Electricity at home and EARN MONEY
3) FiT - Critical Success Factors

Or, read all about FiT at SEDA Malaysia website here.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

World Population hits 7 Billion

Think about this:

World population 1-Nov-11
A screen shot of the live updates at the time this entry was posted (1-11-2011).
Source: Worldometers


On Monday the United Nations officially declared a baby born in the Philippines as the world's 7 billionth occupant. According to the statement, Danica May Camacho was born just after midnight Monday at a local hospital in Manila. After declaring her the honorary 7 billionth inhabitant of the planet, U.N. officials presented the baby's parents with a scholarship for her education and a financial package to help them open a general store.

The world's population has doubled in the past 50 years, and the 6 billionth occupant was officially born Oct. 12, 1999, in Bosnia - just about 12 years ago.


As shown in the graph below, the world population is increasing at accelerated pace since 1950 and if this trend continues we will have a population of 10 billion by 2050.

World population 7 Bil-a
Source: USA Today


So, what does this mean to us?

It is inevitable there will be an increase in the demand on the world's natural resources and that increase would be exponential. Many of these are already under tremendous pressure from current rate of depletion.

Essential things like water, coal, oil and gas, phosphorus (for plants to grow), rare earth elements such as neodymium (e.g. for electricity generation, etc) will become scarce and as smart as we humans are, there will certainly be a melt-point somewhere not too far away from now where the graph will plot into a plateau.

In short, looking from science point of view, how well we cope with increasing population depends much on how well we manage our WATER, FOOD and ENERGY.

So, as you think of water, food and energy, think green. Act and treat our earth with our children's children in mind.