Pola Singh: ‘ We should win over
these consumers by turning them
into green consumers.’

03/12/2011 (The Star) - Even before the ink on the Renewable Energy Act 2011 dried, companies have already made a beeline towards providing clean energy to the national power grid.

Leading the pack is Cypark Resources Bhd. Listed on Bursa Malaysia in October 2010, it is a specialist in landfills and its job mainly revolves around the rehabilitation of old polluting dumping grounds.

Another interesting aspect of its work was that it uses the vast open space of the landfill to generate power. It harvests the biogas that is emitted from the biodegrading material in the landfill and it has put in place an array of solar panels on the top of the landfill to generate electricity.

The company aims to generate, in three years, between 30MW and 50MW of power from three sources - solar, biogas and biomass - and its first solar park, measuring 12.14ha, will be in Pajam, Negri Sembilan.

Besides its Pajam project, Cypark has access to 17 landfill more sites in Negri Sembilan, Johor, Pahang, Terengganu and Perlis which may eventually be converted into renewable energy (RE) parks.

AWC Bhd also announce that it expects its 1MW capacity solar farm to start operations by the first quarter of 2012, saying that it is still finalising its agreement with a state government agency.

Berjaya Corp Bhd has also submitted a proposal to the Government to build a 100MW solar power plant in Bukit Tagar, Selangor. Teaming up with South Korean partner Posco Engineering & Construction Co Ltd, the project is projected to cost RM800mil to RM1bil.

However, only 50MW is allocated for 2011/2012 while 100MW quota will be made available in 2013 and 2014. It remains to be seen how these companies will compete to get a slice of this lucrative business given the limited quota for solar power.

The rush for solar energy stems from the higher price it fetches and there is zero issue on feedstock compared with biogas or biomass. Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) will pay up to RM1.40 per kWh of energy produced from solar farms it buys from. Due to the overwhelming response to solar PV, the FiT (Feed-in tariff) applications for solar PV are limited to a maximum 5 MWp rated capacity.

First Solar Malaysia senior director of public affairs for Asia-Pacific Ahmad Hadri Haris says there is tremendous potential for RE in Malaysia, in particular from solar, biomass, biogas and hydro.

“Earlier studies conducted by the Malaysia Building Integrated Photovoltaic Project in 2009 identified a market potential of 3GW by 2020 and can it can grow to 7GW by 2030. In reality more MW from RE can be derived provided the market conditions are conducive and supportive,” he says.