PUTRAJAYA, April 11 (Bernama) -- The Renewable Energy Business Facility(REBF) has been established under the BioGen Project to provide financialassistance for the development and implementation of biomass-based powergeneration.

Pusat Tenaga Malaysia (PTM) chief executive officer Dr Anuar Abd Rahmansaid this was the first funding scheme for renewable energy (RE) projectin the country.

Size of the fund is RM28 million, contributed equally by PTM and BankIndustri & Teknologi Malaysia Bhd.

The fund from PTM portion is a contribution of RM9.2 million from theGlobal Environment Facility (GEF) and RM5 million from Akaun AmanahIndustri Bekalan Electrik, Anuar said.

He was speaking at the signing ceremony of a memorandum of agreement forthe REBF involving PTM, Bank Industri, the Energy, Water andCommunications Ministry, and the United Nations Development Programme,here Monday.

Anuar said the REBF was aimed at removing the financing barrier for the REproject.

He said the fund would be used as an initial financing assistance tosupport the financial needs for the first full scale model power plantunder the BioGen Project.

The full scale model, he added, is a biomass and biogas based gridconnected RE power plant utilising palm oil residues, particularly theempty fruit bunch and palm oil mill effluent.

Anuar said the RM9.2 million contributions from GEF is restricted to fundpart of the demonstration schemes, specifically the biogas recovery andutilisation component of the full scale model.

The scheme, he added, will provide a soft loan to the first full scalemodel which involves all the cost, including design, engineering,fabrication, installation, procurement and testing commissioning.

-- BERNAMA