AWARENESS ON RE IMPROVING, TO DRIVE MALAYSIA'S SOLAR INDUSTRY HIGHER

By NURUNNASIHAH AHMAD RASHID

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 – Malaysia’s solar energy industry is set to scale greater heights, thanks to heightening awareness about the benefits of renewable energy (RE), not only to the environment but also to the economy. 

According to Plus Solar System Sdn Bhd’s chief executive officer and co-founder Ko Chuan Zhen, the country’s RE industry is moving in the right direction, thanks to stronger government support and introduction of initiatives to developed investors’ confidence as well as reducing costs.

 Plus Solar Systems is a homegrown solar installation company.

“When we started in 2011, the whole industry was at its infancy and people has a lot of doubts about policies and even questioned whether solar is something stable.

“With a lot of time educating the market, what I can see is that awareness has certainly increased ten folds, compared to the past 10 years. And today the trust level, business confidence and technical reliability are at its peak,” he told Bernama in an exclusive interview recently.

In comparison with the Western market, Ko said, Malaysia took some time to embrace the environmental-friendly solar photovoltaic (PV) or renewable energy, mainly due to the country’s one-of-the-lowest in the world electricity price which proved to be a deterrent for Malaysia’s early start in the industry.

“But, today, our electricity rate is increasing and the push for renewable energy has brought about a change in attitude and acceptance of renewable energy.

“This gives us room to buffer for the industry player to grow,” he added.

The entrepreneur noted that from Feed-in-Tariff to net energy metering mechanism to Large Scale Solar programmes have helped to build a strong foundation in Malaysia’s solar industry.

“And this few years, we have entered into a super-fast growing stage, namely peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading programme, whereby those who generate excess energy through their solar PV panels will be able to sell the additional power to other consumers.

“However, at the moment, the P2P is conducting under the pilot projects stage, aiming at bringing energy prices down thus benefit consumers who do not have solar panels but want to have cheaper green energy,” Ko added.

P2P was part of the Renewable Energy Transition Roadmap 2035, developed to explore and enact the action plan of the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change to achieve the renewable energy mix target of 20 per cent by 2025.

-- BERNAMA