WITH Malaysia’s economy getting hit repeatedly due to the pandemic, Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) urged the Government to increase quota for solar power under the Net Energy Metering (NEM 3.0) policy, as it would create jobs in the renewable energy (RE) sector.
The green jobs created by the solar industry are crucial to stem chronic unemployment and the climate crisis.
“Besides that, the rapid adoption of rooftop solar by the commercial sector will bring down the rooftop solar panel prices. The decrease in prices will also increase the installation rate by the price-conscious residential sector,” its central committee member Sharan Raj told FocusM.
On April 5, Energy and Natural Resources (Ketsa) Minister Datuk Seri Shamsul Anuar Nasarah urged industry players not to press the Government to set a high a target for RE, as consumers may be burdened with higher tariff.
He added that the Government had set a RE target of 31% of the generation capacity for 2025, hence, the electricity sector is expected to reduce the intensity of carbon emissions by 45% for the period.
“In addition, efforts to sustain the country’s electricity supply should also be implemented through consistent and transparent distribution policies and quota approvals to give investors confidence to continue investing in the country’s RE development industry,” The Edge reported Shamsul saying.
However, Sharan then shot back at the minister’s argument, adding the Government was giving excuses to protect the interest of independent power producers (IPP) despite the prices of RE dropping sharply over the years.
“If one deciphers Shamsul’s statement recently, it’s clear that they are trying to protect IPPs at the expense of the rakyat.
“According to the Energy Commission (EC) report published in March, it says that between 2021 and 2039, Peninsula Malaysia will decommission nearly 17,000 megawatts (MW) of fossil fuel power plants.
“However, they will replace them with another 17,000MW fossil fuel power plants. So, there you have it.The right-wing political elites want to continue providing fixed income to their fossil fuel IPP crony capitalists at the expenses of the people and nation,” he told FocusM then.
IPP’s interest more important to Gov’t
Elaborating on the issue, Sharan said that while the Government projected the 300MW solar quota for the commercial sector to last for three years, he estimated it will be exhausted within months.
He added the quota for the commercial sector could potentially be exhausted by May, after the take-up rate hit 75% within 43 days.
“And the rooftop solar industry will come to a near halt, stalling job creation as the commercial sector represents 90% of total rooftop solar demand,” Sharan opined.
With that, he urged the Government to adopt the smart electricity grid (SEG) comprehensively, as Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s (TNB) electricity grid can only accept about 4,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power.
He added that the Government had already allocated about 3,500 MW until 2023 under the Large-Scale Solar (LSS1-3) and rooftop solar (NEM 1-3) programmes, leaving a buffer of 500MW for rooftop solar, on top of the 200MW of unutilised Large-Scale Solar quota.
“Therefore, the Government needs to increase the depleting rooftop solar quota for the commercial sector to stem unemployment and climate crisis,” Sharan stressed.
On SEG, the PSM leader lamented the fact that Malaysia was slow to adopt its use despite being one of the earliest nations in the world to propose its use, about 10 years ago.
Sharan added that some of the technology to build SEG were created by Malaysians, ahead of their US and European counterparts.
“But our rollout was shameful. One of the problems we faced was getting approval from Ketsa,” he claimed.
With SEG, Sharan said Malaysia would be able to reduce standby powerplant, known as electricity reserve margin, from 51% (FY2021) to about 10%.
“We can actually decommission at least 10,000MW of fossil fuel IPPs to reduce the fixed standby fees to the crony capitalists, which results in lower electricity tariff for consumers,” he remarked. – May 16, 2021
