Malaysia 51st Happiest Nation in the World

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Recently the United Nation released the 'World Happiness Report' at its headquarters in New York and if UN's yardstick is to go by, Malaysia would be the world's 51st happiest country.

Not that bad considering there were altogether 156 countries surveyed in this report.

Among the factors considered to 'measure the happiness level of the countries' were:

1) materialistic prosperity of individual

2) individual's general disposition

3) level of contentment with basic aspirations

Malaysia was ranked second in Southeast Asia, behind Singapore (ranked 33rd globally). Other SEA nations surveyed include Thailand (52nd), Myanmar (74th) and Indonesia (83rd).

Top three rankings go to the rich Scandinavia countries:

1st - Denmark

2nd - Finland

3rd - Norway

Other notable mention:

United States (world's richest nation) - 11th

Japan - 44th

Iran - 84th

Syria - 106th

China - 111th

Togo - the 'least happy' country.

So, where would you like to live (if it was up to you)? Denmark or Finland? Then again, it boils down to individual good mental and physical health, job security, stable family and someone to count on that could be more important than mere wealth.

Be content and always give thanks.

ASEAN Energy Awards 2012

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Title: ASEAN Energy Efficient Building Competition and ASEAN Energy Management Competition

Organiser: ASEAN CENTRE FOR ENERGY
Coordinator: SEDA Malaysia
Invited:  Owners/managers of buildings and factories in Malaysia
Deadline: Report must be submitted before 11th April 2012

Who to Contact: Scroll to the bottom of this article, or visit SEDA Malaysia website.



The Competition is divided into five (5) categories, each of which are detailed in the following table:
(Note: Guidelines and Forms can be downloaded from here)

Interested Building Owners or Building & Factory Managers are invited to participate and report must be submitted BEFORE 11 April 2012 (Wednesday) at:

The AEA 2012- Secretariat

Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA Malaysia)

Galeria PjH, Aras 9, Jalan P4W,

Persiaran Perdana, Presint 4,

62100 Putrajaya, Malaysia.

Phone : +603-8870 6198 Fax : +603-8870 5900

Contact Person: Ms Sazlinda Ayu Arshad (ayu.arshad@seda.gov.my)

Further information on this competition can be obtained from http://www.aseanenergy.org

FiT in Sabah has been suspended

This is to recap that the FiT implementation in Sabah has been suspended except for Small Renewable Energy Power (SREP) Programme projects which reached commercial operation date by Dec 31, 2011.

What is FiT

A feed-in tariff (FiT) is a rate of money paid by the government to homeowners or organisations to generate their own electricity through small-scale green energy or renewable energy installations. In Malaysia, renewable resources covered by the FiT includes biogas, biomass, small hydropower, and solar PV.

TNB/SESB to pay grid-connected RE producers. Image: Kolopis Main Intake substation (PMU)

Why the suspension in Sabah?

I read about this in Business Times few days ago whereby SEDA chief executive officer Badriyah Abdul Malek said "It would be justifiable for the Sabah Government to contribute to the RE Fund, following the suspension of FiT implementation there," in a press interview.

I dug for a little bit more and found that earlier in March 2012 The Star reported the same. This means the suspension could have been imposed no longer than 2 months back.

From the few press reports, I can only deduce that the suspension was due to Sabah not contributing to the RE Fund set up by the government when the FiT was implemented in December last year. Sabah government appealed for a delay in RE Fund collection as it would be too taxing on consumers here since electricity tariff has just been increased by about 15% in July 2011.

No contribution, no benefit so it seems.

The eligible SREP I mentioned earlier covers only 5 green power producers as they are already operating commercially, as of December 2011. Total power generated by these RE entities is 36.5MW.

On the same token, the rumoured JV between SEC and SESB to build solar farm mentioned in my article Cypark and TNB signed Renewable Energy Power Purchase Agreement, will not metarialise after all. This is somewhat turning into a sad ending.

We can still participate in the FiT

What we can do is simply contribute to the Renewable Energy (RE) Fund. The heavy energy users in Sabah has not yet been levied for the energy consumed and as it was the State Government who appealed for delay of the RE Fund collection, it is just fair that the same government shoulder the obligation to contribute.

As per the Chief Minister's recent 2012 budget presentation Sabah seem to have a lot of money in its reserve coffer. Use it.

As SEDA CEO mentioned, it is not fair that only industry players (heavy energy consumers) in Peninsula Malaysia are being levied but not consumers in Sabah.