@Green July/August 2020 | Page 27

July-August, 2020 | @green SOLAR 27 The excess energy generated can be exported to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) on a one-on-one offset basis. Chen said while the balance of 300MW of NEM 2.0 would be valid until the end of this year, SEDA would study the subsequent NEM scheme to further support the PV rooftop market. SEDA Malaysia runs the NEM scheme that allows electricity consumers of TNB to install a solar PV system in their premises. Chen also said that during this pandemic period, an extension of time for NEM projects would not be automatic and NEM applicants were required to submit their request for extension of time and approval would be granted on a case-by-case basis. MIDA’s Zulina Mohamed talked on Tax Incentives for Green Technology at the Webinar. She said the government had introduced incentives under the green technology in the Budget 2014 to encourage companies to utilise green technology or invest in green equipment for own use or business purposes. Under the Budget 2020, the incentives, namely Green Investment Tax Allowance (GITA) and Green Income Tax Exemption (GITE), have been extended to end-December 2023 to recipients who met the criteria of green technology as defined in the National Green Technology Policy. However, at this juncture, MIDA has yet to receive the finalized revised guidelines for the extension of GITA and GITE, including the new GITE provision for companies undertaking solar leasing activities. Meanwhile, MPIA’s Lionel Yap shared his views on the local solar PV industry when presenting his talk on Malaysia Solar PV Rooftop Market. Based on the large untapped areas of rooftops for solar PV installations in Malaysia, Yap was optimistic with the prospects of the industry. Specifically, Yap provided illustrations of payback of three to over five years for PV rooftop projects within the Northern Klang Valley region with GITA support for electricity consumers of tariff commercial and industrial sectors. He noted the nation’s 20 per cent renewable energy target in the electricity mix by 2025 focuses on increasing solar energy generation capacity and this would continue to create new business opportunities for big companies, SMEs, microbusiness and households. Nirinder gave a talk on Supply Agreement with Renewable Energy (SARE) at the Webinar. SARE is a tripartite Wei-nee Chen Zulina Mohamed Sanjayan Velautham Lionel Yap Nirinder Singh Johl contract between prosumer, investor/asset owner and TNB that reduces the counterparty risk of the investor/ asset owner. SARE makes green energy accessible to businesses by facilitating investors to fund and own on-site renewable energy generation on prosumers premise. The SARE has four options depending on financing configuration and ownership of the building to be installed with PV. The final speaker at the Webinar was Hussam. He shared the bank’s available financing solution for solar PV investments. Hussam said CIMB was moving forward with sustainability and the bank had always emphasised value-creation which required a delicate balancing of the long-term interests of its people, planet and profitability. He noted the bank had introduced an SME renewable energy financing to assist the SMEs in fulfilling their financing needs to install rooftop solar PVs. Some of the features of the solar financing include term loan of up to 10 years, financing limit of up to 100 per cent of PV system cost capped at a maximum of RM1 million and no collateral is required as security, save for joint and several guarantees. So what has Covid-19 taught us? Sanjayan summed up his thoughts towards the end of his keynote speech: “Just like the pandemic curve, climate change has no respect for borders. It is colour-blind and has no regards on which social status we belong to. To this end, we must learn and we must act to flatten the climate curve.” In this regard, the inaugural webinar by SEDA Malaysia shed invaluable insights that investment in the sun was one such measure to flatten the climate curve. – @green Table 1: Summary of trading during alpha phase • Existing tariff more than RM0.50 per kWh • RMR meter customer Since the excess energy needs to be transferred between the prosumer and consumer, interim system access charge RM0.063 per kWh was approved by the Energy Commission for the purpose of this pilot run utilising the grid. Furthermore, any untraded energy will be bought by TNB at zero cost. Therefore, it is important to find the prosumers and consumers with matching energy generations and demands Other important components to run the P2P energy trading pilot are the energy meter with remote meter reading (RMR) capabilities and billing system. TNB, as a partner for this pilot Project, has provided both requirements and strong support towards this project. Under this pilot project, Power Ledger, an Australian company, has provided the P2P energy trading platform with the blockchain technologies to process the meter data and trading logic. After four months of pilot run under the alpha phase, the outcome of the trading between the prosumers and consumers can be seen in Table 1. Moving forward, the pilot project will start the beta phase and look into matters relating to commercial implementation of the P2P energy trading in Malaysia. Beta phase is very important since it will conduct almost actual processes for the P2P energy trading. Several areas are aimed to be tested during the beta such Exhibit 1: Trading dashboard of a prosumer This slide is a snapshot of the P2P energy trading platform of a prosumer in November last year. The chart shows the amount of energy sold by a prosumer, the green bar indicates sale to P2P while the grey portion indicates spillage. This chart is quite good as it shows that most of the excess solar electricity is sold to P2P and only a little is spilled to the grid. as business model, trading logics, regulations, settlement process, risks and challenges. Covid-19 As a result of the recent COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the beta run has been postponed so as to prevent financial losses by the prosumers due to possible high volume of untraded electricity as a result of low economic activities from both the prosumers and consumers. Subsequently the alpha run will continue until such time when the economic activities in the country resume to normal before beta run will commence. – @green References 1. https://irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Topics/ Innovation-and-Technology/IRENA_Landscape_Solution_08.pdf?la=en&hash=90FF077D226D6985A0C0F0 0012E94E8FD745414D 2. https://www.infiniteenergy.com.au/ peer-to-peer-energy-trading/ 3. SEDA Malaysia Alpha report