GOVT UPBEAT ON ACHIEVING 20PC R.E. GOAL
Clean energy target reachable in 12 years, if not by 2025, says minister
MEETING the 20 per cent renewable energy (RE) generation target may take longer than expected, said Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin.
Speaking to the media after the opening of the Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry 2018 (CEPSI 2018), Yeo said the government was confident of achieving the 20 per cent target in 12 years.
“Our goal is to achieve the 20 per cent target by 2025, but even if we don’t, I am confident that by 2030, we would be able to reach it.
“However, I would like to stress that the RE target should not take priority over energy affordability. The affordability and adoption of RE should be balanced and not be at the expense of the other.
“We are conducting talks on this and figuring out how to get our grid ready. We will make the announcement when the time comes,” she said in response New Straits Times’ query on the feasibility and achievability of the target set for the next seven years.
The Pakatan Harapan government, in its election manifesto, has pledged to increase the country’s electricity from RE sources to 20 per cent by 2025 from two per cent currently, and make it affordable and accessible in Malaysia.
It pledged to enforce strict logging quotas to conserve the forest, implement regulations to protect wildlife and marine life, take punitive action against poachers and illegal loggers and reduce dependence on coal power plants.
It also promised to reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.
On the government’s stance on independent power producers (IPPs), Yeo said it planned to further liberalise the generation of electricity and avoid direct IPP tendering.
“On the generation side, it was already liberalised. But... there were a lot of direct tenders and direct IPP awards.
“If the IPP awards were open tenders and efficient, then our electricity generation would have already been liberalised. What we don’t have it right now is decentralisation of electricity generation,” she added.
In July, Yeo said the government had cancelled four IPP contracts while continuing to review contracts of other IPPs.
She said many of the IPPs had been approved through direct negotiations and awards and the government had decided to review the contracts, especially those with no-cost implications.