Malaysia Feed-in-Tariff Quota Release Announcement Delayed

According to The Malaysian Reserve Malaysia government has postponed its announcement of the 2014 Renewable Energy Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) quota to April, at the earliest. This is because Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) Malaysia is amending the Renewable Energy (RE) Act 2011. RE Act has been revised almost annually since it was introduced to accommodate changing needs of the industry. Current amendments include:

(1) Large commercial non-individual PV projects size to be brought down from 72kW to 12kW.

(2) Sections that involved the terms and operational requirements.

(3) FiT approval & FiT rates.

(4) Recovery of money.

(5) Regulating solar PV service provider

(6) Inclusion of geothermal sources as new RE source.

The delay may mean that the rollout of the FiT programme for 2014 may be spread into 2015.

On whether there will be a substantial increase in the quantum of the quota for 2014, SEDA Malaysia CEO Datin Badriyah Malek said: “I think the quota for biogas, biomass and hydro will be quite substantial, but the quota for solar, because it has the highest technology cost, we have to look at the numbers very, very carefully.”

Declining to disclose any figures, she described the numbers as “decent”, compared to last year’s 20MW which she described as “tiny”.