Driving national renewable energy agenda with solar roadshow
KUALA LUMPUR: To heed the call for higher adoption of renewable energy and the government’s target of achieving 20 per cent power generation capacity with renewable energy by 2025, the Malaysian Photovoltaic Industry Association (MPIA) recently launched the MPIA Solar Roadshow 2020-2021.
This solar roadshow is to serve as a platform in providing one-stop information on policy, programme, tax incentive, financing, insurance coverage, risk and return of investment, solar leasing and power purchase agreement (PPA) on rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system investment.
The MPIA Solar Roadshow 2020-2021 features speakers from Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA), Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Energy Commission (ST) and representatives from the solar PV industry supply chain.
It is taking place in seven locations nationwide until April 2021, with energy consumers especially those in the commercial and industrial sectors as the target audience.
“The Malaysian Government has set the target of achieving 20 per cent power generation capacity for renewable energy by 2025,” MPIA president Chin Soo Mau at the grand opening of the event in Selangor on September 9.
“While it is an ambitious goal, it is the right direction and in line with the global trend of carbon footprint reduction. In Denmark, half of its power generation already came from renewable energy since 2019.
“Meanwhile, Germany has targeted 65 per cent of its electricity to come from renewable energy by 2030.
“Closer to us, South Korea has aimed for 30 to 35 per cent of its power generation to come from renewable energy by 2040.”
“In meeting our national target on renewable energy, MPIA has come in to fill the gap. And it is against this backdrop that MPIA has initiated this solar roadshow.
“This roadshow is designed in a way that the audience will get direct and accurate information from truthful sources.”
He said according to government data, there are more than four million buildings in our country which can potentially be installed with solar PV system to harvest free and renewable energy from the sun.
However, it is estimated that only less than 12,000 buildings have been installed with solar PV systems for electricity consumption, that number is not even one per cent of the over four million buildings.
On the contrary, MPIA would like to point out that in Australia, a country with smaller population than Malaysia, there are more than two million buildings already installed with solar PV systems.
“In fact, the deployment of solar PV systems by companies on their commercial or industrial buildings is not only a response to climate change, it improves cashflow due to energy bill savings and adds a lot of brand value to the corporate image in terms of going green.
“This is how some of the multinational companies leverage on the ‘green label’ to create better awareness or even a price premium for their products and services, such an approach is really something to be reckoned with,” Chin told audience of the solar roadshow last Wednesday.
“We hope that roadshow like this will contribute to better awareness about solar energy and greater interest for using solar PV system to generate electricity, especially when prices of solar PV systems are now far more affordable than a decade ago as a result of new technology and economies of scale.”
The solar roadshow has received overwhelming supports from different quarters, with SEDA, MIDA, ST, Invest Selangor, InvestPerak and the Asian Photovoltaic Industry Association (APVIA) being the supporting organizations.
CIMB Bank and UOB Bank are among the sponsors of the event, other sponsors include global solar inverter manufacturers Huawei Technologies and Sungrow, global solar panel manufacturers Longi Solar and Canadian Solar, as well as Anora Agency - the insurance agency responsible for developing Malaysia’s first solar PV system insurance in collaboration with SEDA and MPIA.
Due to standard operating procedure amid the Covid-19 pandemic, only one hundred participants are allowed to join the conference at the solar roadshow; the MPIA secretariat has rejected more than a hundred people who wanted to register for the conference last Wednesday.
Nevertheless, there are six other locations where the public are still able to participate in the event, and the immediate next location will be Ipoh, Perak on October 6, 2020.
Interested participants may check for more details and register for free online at https://mpia.org. my/events/.
While it is an ambitious goal, it is the right direction and in line with the global trend of carbon footprint reduction. In Denmark, half of its power generation already came from renewable energy since 2019.
Chin Soo Mau