KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysia will allow only non-renewable energy exports to Singapore, while power sales to the island through self-developed transmission and interconnection facilities will not be allowed, Bernama reported the country's energy ministry as saying.
The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry (KeTSA) said in a statement on Friday that the Malaysian government has decided to review the guide for cross-border electricity sales issued by its Energy Commission to expand its purview over the two energy and power sources, national news agency Bernama reported.
The statement said the government has also agreed that the wheeling charges for selling electricity to Singapore over a two-year trial period will be US$0.0228 (S$0.031) per kilowatt hour (kWh).
"The decision was made to boost the development of the local renewable energy (RE) industry as Malaysia aspires to reach its climate change aspiration.
"It will also allow the government to allocate additional solar quota to benefit Malaysian RE players," the statement said, as quoted by the news agency.
The updated guide for cross-border electricity sales will be published on the Energy Commission's website tomorrow.
According to the statement, the decision also means Malaysia's government is now able to increase its solar capacity within the national grid system.
In accordance with that, the ministry also decided to release an additional 300MW of solar quota under the net energy metering (NEM) Net Offset Virtual Aggregation (Nova) programme, which allows businesses to install solar photovoltaic systems on their premises to harness the sun's energy for electricity use.
Applications for the additional quota can be done through the Sustainable Energy Authority Development of Malaysia's eNEM system starting from Nov 15.
"The release of the additional NEM Nova quota is expected to benefit more than 60 to 300 commercial and industrial customers and create new business opportunities for more than 100 local solar players," the ministry said.
The move will create an estimated investment value of RM1.2 billion (S$390 million) and provide 3,600 job opportunities.
