According to Economy Minister Mohd Rafizi Ramli, the government lifted the export ban for renewable energy as part of an ongoing policy review aimed at debottlenecking the energy sector.
Rafizi, at a press conference held with Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, said that the government was also committed to introducing more RE programs based on a willing buyer, and seller basis, to encourage private sector participation.
Rafizi stated that the cross-border RE sales will be conducted through an electricity exchange system which the government will set up. Rafizi said that the Cabinet decided on the policy updates last week in light of the growing demand for RE across the region.
Nik Nazmi, the government spokesperson, said that along with lifting the export ban, the government will also increase its target for 2050 RE capacity to 70%, up from its previous 40% target.
Malaysia must therefore double its RE installations in comparison to previous projections. Malaysia’s energy production capacity is currently 25% RE such as solar or hydro.
Nik Nazmi stated that “the government’s decision allowing RE exports comes along with certain regulations.”
Malaysia, for example, already buys hydropower from Laos. “This [policy] allows Malaysia to become a RE generation hub in the region,” he said.
He pointed out that Malaysia is at the heart of Asean and has been revisiting the idea of an Asean Power Grid, where the sale of electricity across the countries takes place to optimize resources.
It will be interesting for future RE projects to see how the mechanisms to sanction them are implemented.
The government has been using a reverse-bidding mechanism for the installation of solar plants over 10MW and up to 100MW. The last round of the LSS was awarded in March 2021 and covered 823.06MW.
The government introduced several RE-related programs in the past year. One of them is the Corporate Green Power Programme, which encourages solar power producers to work with commercial power users to create a new RE power production capacity of up to 30MW for each project.
The lifting of the RE export ban follows a review that was launched two months ago, on March 9. The export ban was implemented in October 2021, by Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan.
Rafizi also said that the government will allocate RM50 million to install solar panels in government buildings during the second half of this year. Additional allocations are expected to be made under future development expenditures.
He added that the company is also interested in expanding its self-consumption models.
Remember that only 34MW of the 100MW allocated by the government under the current Net Energy Metering (NEM), which ends this year, has been used for government buildings.
Nik Nazmi introduced an additional quota in March of 630MW for CGPP and NEM programs as part of his efforts to increase uptake.
