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6 VOL 55 JUNE 2013 INGENIEUR 6 VOL 75 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2018 CO VE R F EA TU RE Climate change has become one of the most discussed issues in the world that needs everyone’s attention and action. In Malaysia, Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) together with the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology & Water has taken the responsibility of transiting our country’s energy landscape from one that is heavily dependent upon fossil fuel to one using renewable energy. Scientists have largely agreed that climate change is caused primarily by carbon emissions due to human activities. Climate change needs to be addressed in two ways: ● Climate change mitigation – the Government should incorporate policies to facilitate energy transition to decarbonise especially the energy and transportation sectors. These two sectors constitute approximately 80% of the country’s total carbon emissions. Decarbonising of the energy sector will require deliberate policies to phase out the use of fossil fuel (e.g. coal, gas and oil), increasing the use of renewable energy (e.g. solar, hydro and bioenergy) and enhancing energy demand management. ● Climate change adaptation – this will require adaptation across all critical sectors (e.g. agriculture, power & water utilities and infrastructure). In Malaysia, we have nearly 84% of coal and gas in our electricity capacity mix and this fossil fuel generation will continue to be added to the system. Continuous development of conventional thermal plants will only exacerbate the climate crisis and if the fuel needs to be imported, then true national energy security is questionable. We also need to ask ourselves: can renewable energy replace conventional thermal energy? The Sustainable Energy – The Future is Here By Ir. Akmal Rahimi Abu Samah Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) answer is yes. A more pressing question is how much time do we have before the global average temperature increase tips over the 2°C threshold. Some scientists estimate that as few as 10 years will be needed to achieve global carbon neutrality. Therefore, the time to transit to renewable energy is now. Renewable Energy Programmes in Malaysia Malaysia is to reduce its carbon footprint especially in terms of energy. This reduction in carbon emissions is gaining importance with the ratification by the Malaysian Government on the Paris Climate Agreement at the end of 2016. Malaysia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is to reduce our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030 relative to the emissions intensity of GDP in 2005. 7 This consists of 35% on an unconditional basis and a further 10% conditional upon international support. To this end, sustainable energy has been identified as one of the key climate mitigation solutions to reduce carbon emissions. The Renewal Energy (RE) target under the Eleventh Malaysia Plan of 2,080 MW has already been factored into several RE programmes in the country, e.g. feed-in tariff (FiT), large scale solar (LSS) and net energy metering (NEM). The Ministry and SEDA are also in the midst of coming up with long-term plans and strategies to increase the share of RE in the energy mix. Renewable energy (RE) awareness varies across the country. In urban areas RE awareness is better, while awareness on energy efficiency generally fares better compared to RE. The main drivers towards sustainable energy are to address climate change and national energy security. However, surveys have shown that the public awareness of climate change is greater compared to national energy security. This is probably not a surprise given that Malaysia has experienced effects of climate change in the past few years with the prolonged drought followed by sudden extreme floods in certain parts of the country. The politicians’ awareness of sustainability has risen in the past few years with the committed Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) expressed at the Paris Climate Accord at the end of 2015. The Ministry and all its relevant agencies are also continuously organising awareness campaigns on matters related to RE. The themes of these campaigns include green technology, green lifestyle, GHG emission reduction, low- carbon economy & practices, global warming issues, etc. The Ministry and its agencies have conducted many such programmes in schools and to communities at large. (a) Feed-in Tariff (FiT) FiT was first implemented by SEDA on December 1, 2011. The FiT system obliges Distribution Licensees (DLs) to buy from Feed-in Approval Holders (FIAHs) the electricity produced from renewable resources and sets the FiT rate. The DLs will pay for RE supplied to the electricity grid for a specific duration. The renewable portfolio encompasses biogas, biomass, solarphotovoltaic (PV), small hydro and geothermal energy. The FiT has proven that RE is viable and has the opportunity to scale beyond token capacity. We have witnessed a paradigm shift towards greater deployment of renewable energy for power generation in the country. The tables below show the progress of the FiT as at end of January 2018. Renewable Resource No. of Appli- cations Capacity (MW) (%) Biogas 127 221.42 13.53% Biomass 44 396.19 24.22% Small hydro 61 540.48 33.03% Geothermal 1 37.00 2.26% Solar PV 11,957 441.02 26.96% Total 12,190 1,636.11 100.00% Table 1: Cumulative Approved FiT Applications Renewable Resource No. of Projects Capacity (MW) % Biogas 31 58.23 10.90% Biomass 8 87.90 16.45% Small hydro 6 30.30 5.67% Solar PV 9,249 357.83 66.98% Total 9,294 534.26 100.00% Table 2: Cumulative Approved FiT Projects Achieving Commercial Operation (b) Large Scale Solar (LSS) The LSS auction programme started in 2016, where the first round of tender took place. The solar plant’s capacity ranged from 1 MW to 50 MW and the power is injected either to the transmission or the distribution network. A total of 401 MW capacity was awarded to the successful bidders at the end of 2016. These projects are scheduled to be commissioned this year. The second round of LSS tender was carried out in 2017 with plant capacity range of between 1 MW and 30 MW. At the end of that year, a total capacity of 557 MW was awarded to the successful bidders. Projects from this round of tenders are scheduled to achieve commercial operation in 2019 and 2020. The second round of LSS tender has seen a higher number of projects awarded and lower bid prices from the bidders. 6 VOL 55 JUNE 2013 INGENIEUR 6 VOL 75 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2018 CO VE R F EA TU RE Climate change has become one of the most discussed issues in the world that needs everyone’s attention and action. In Malaysia, Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) together with the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology & Water has taken the responsibility of transiting our country’s energy landscape from one that is heavily dependent upon fossil fuel to one using renewable energy. Scientists have largely agreed that climate change is caused primarily by carbon emissions due to human activities. Climate change needs to be addressed in two ways: ● Climate change mitigation – the Government should incorporate policies to facilitate energy transition to decarbonise especially the energy and transportation sectors. These two sectors constitute approximately 80% of the country’s total carbon emissions. Decarbonising of the energy sector will require deliberate policies to phase out the use of fossil fuel (e.g. coal, gas and oil), increasing the use of renewable energy (e.g. solar, hydro and bioenergy) and enhancing energy demand management. ● Climate change adaptation – this will require adaptation across all critical sectors (e.g. agriculture, power & water utilities and infrastructure). In Malaysia, we have nearly 84% of coal and gas in our electricity capacity mix and this fossil fuel generation will continue to be added to the system. Continuous development of conventional thermal plants will only exacerbate the climate crisis and if the fuel needs to be imported, then true national energy security is questionable. We also need to ask ourselves: can renewable energy replace conventional thermal energy? The Sustainable Energy – The Future is Here By Ir. Akmal Rahimi Abu Samah Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) answer is yes. A more pressing question is how much time do we have before the global average temperature increase tips over the 2°C threshold. Some scientists estimate that as few as 10 years will be needed to achieve global carbon neutrality. Therefore, the time to transit to renewable energy is now. Renewable Energy Programmes in Malaysia Malaysia is to reduce its carbon footprint especially in terms of energy. This reduction in carbon emissions is gaining importance with the ratification by the Malaysian Government on the Paris Climate Agreement at the end of 2016. Malaysia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is to reduce our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030 relative to the emissions intensity of GDP in 2005. 7 This consists of 35% on an unconditional basis and a further 10% conditional upon international support. To this end, sustainable energy has been identified as one of the key climate mitigation solutions to reduce carbon emissions. The Renewal Energy (RE) target under the Eleventh Malaysia Plan of 2,080 MW has already been factored into several RE programmes in the country, e.g. feed-in tariff (FiT), large scale solar (LSS) and net energy metering (NEM). The Ministry and SEDA are also in the midst of coming up with long-term plans and strategies to increase the share of RE in the energy mix. Renewable energy (RE) awareness varies across the country. In urban areas RE awareness is better, while awareness on energy efficiency generally fares better compared to RE. The main drivers towards sustainable energy are to address climate change and national energy security. However, surveys have shown that the public awareness of climate change is greater compared to national energy security. This is probably not