Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) today said the additional one per cent charged on electricity consumers for the Renewable Energy (RE) Fund is neither new nor a scheme to collect money from unwary subscribers.

The utility company said it acted only as a collecting agent on behalf of the Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA), an agency under the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry, for the renewable energy fund.

“Beginning December 2011, the one percent charge was imposed on all users, except for domestic customers who consumed less than 300 kilowatt-hours of electricity or the equivalent of RM77 in a month,” it said in a statement to clarify recent allegations circulating in the social media relating to the one percent RE Fund.

The utility company said the one percent charge was imposed following the launch of the feed-in-tariff system, a funding mechanism under the Renewable Energy Act 2011 and SEDA Act 2011, to encourage the development of renewable energy via cost-sharing among electricity consumers in peninsular Malaysia.

- Bernama