The Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (SEDA Malaysia) hopes the public will continue to support the role assumed by the Renewable Energy (RE) Fund in the nation’s bid to push aggressive national green and clean energy growth.

Its chairperson Dr Yee Moh Chai said as the country’s economy was strongly pegged to the price of energy, the ability to achieve a certain level of energy autonomy would help create a more robust and resilient economy.

The government yesterday revised the surcharge on electricity bill for the RE Fund from 1.0 percent to 1.6 percent for peninsular Malaysia, effective Jan 1, 2014 following the review in electricity tariffs.

Sabah consumers, for the first time, will be imposed a surcharge of 1.6 percent in their electricity bills.

Currently, only RE projects in Sabah that were previously under the Small Renewable Energy Power programme and had achieved commercial operation by Dec 1, 2011 were able to take part in the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) mechanism.

However, the FiT is not available for Sarawak, which has its own ordinances and legislations governing the state’s electricity supply.

In a statement today, Yee said as of end-October this year, the FiT mechanism has benefitted 775 houseowners who had installed solar PV systems on their roofs.

He said the public’s response to install the roof top solar PV systems had been overwhelming as the FiT has paved the way for the public to support the national agenda.

The RE Fund is created via Section 23 of the Renewable Energy Act 2011 through the implementation of the (FiT) mechanism, enabling electricity generated from renewable sources to be paid a premium tariff.

While the RE Fund is critical to ensuring the sustainable growth of RE, the government is mindful of protecting consumers with 300 kWh (kilowatt hour) and less of electricity usage (equivalent to RM77) who will be exempted from such contribution.

Of the total domestic electricity consumers, only 29 per cent in peninsular Malaysia and 38 percent in Sabah will be affected.

- Bernama