KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 5 (Bernama) -- Malaysia targets to achieve five percentof electricity generation in the country from the renewable energyresources by the year 2005, said Energy, Telecommunication and Multimediaminister, Datuk Amar Leo Moggie."The most abundant sources of renewable energy are from our palm oilindustries scattered throughout the country," said Moggie in his keynoteaddress at the CIRED Regional Symposium and Exhibition on ElectricityDistribution 2002 organised by the International Conference on ElectricityDistribution (CIRED) Malaysia Chapter, here Monday.

He said at each location of these renewable energy resources, potentialgeneration capacity of between 3 MW (Mega Watts) to 10 MW would bepossible.

"Electricity production from these resources could be directly deliveredto the grid at the distribution voltage level. Therefore, we areencouraging the development of embedded or dispersed generating units toexploit these abundant renewable resources," he added.

Moggie said as incentives to private sector, the government would beoffering a very attractive tariff scheme for sales of energy and in linewith this effort, in 2001 the Energy Commission launched the SmallRenewable Energy Programme (SREP).

The programme was to enable the small power producers using the renewableenergy as their energy sources to sell their excess electricity generatedto the utilities, said Moggie.

Referring to "California Power Crisis" in the year 2000/2001, Moggie saidit had prompted many countries around the world to review theirelectricity sector reform strategies and processes.

"For Malaysia, we were very quick to react to the crisis by reviewing ourreform process and strategies. We adopted new prudent approach that willgive priority to ensuring security of supply and at the same time, we willcontinue to monitor global trends in electricity reforms," he said.

Moggie said the government had decided to adopt a more managed electricitymarket approach.

"Our main objective is to ensure adequate, secure and quality supply tosupport the needs of the industries. Under this managed electricitymarket, new generation capacity is open to competition while long-termcontracts will continue to be practised to ensure viabilities of thesemajor projects," he said.

In recognizing the importance of keeping supply securities, Moggie saidthe managed market approach would ensure that the integrated transmissionnetwork continued to be managed and controlled by incumbent utility.

He said under the managed electricity market approach, the regulator wouldcontinue to play vital roles in the industry, especially in the context ofmaximizing overall gain to the society and improving the competitivenessof the economy.

-- BERNAMA

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