RE surcharge exemption for grid-based green power, open market power programme starting August—Energy Ministry

• The exemption, beginning Aug 1, is also extended to open market green energy programmes, namely the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (CRESS) and Community Renewable Energy Aggregation Mechanism (CREAM)

KUALA LUMPUR (July 24): Subscribers of Malaysia's Green Electricity Tariff (GET) will be exempted from a 1.6% surcharge on their electricity bills meant for the Renewable Energy Fund, the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation (Petra) said.

The exemption, beginning Aug 1, is also extended to open market green energy programmes, namely the Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme (CRESS) and Community Renewable Energy Aggregation Mechanism (CREAM), Petra said in a statement.

With the latest announcement, only the participants of the three programmes, as well as households with total consumption of 300 kilowatt-hour and below for the month's billing, are exempted from the surcharge.

The Renewable Energy Fund collection is used for the administration of the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programmes—such as to fund the slightly higher tariffs that are meant to accelerate development of less mature renewable energy (RE) under FiT.

This includes small hydro, biogas and biomass whose electricity generation capacity is seen at 855 megawatts (MW), according to the statement.

Comparatively, electricity generation capacity from solar now stands at 5,100MW, from 5MW in 2011.

Subscribers of GET are those who get to be certified as sourcing green energy from the grid, by paying an additional three to five sen per kWh on their electricity bills.

"With this implementation and improvement, Petra hopes it will incentivise users, especially corporations and industries, to continue supporting the country's energy transition agenda towards achieving 70% RE mix in the nation's electricity supply by 2050," Petra said.

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