SOLAR-POWERED commercial and industrial buildings stand to benefit the most from Putrajaya’s green incentives, said Yeo Bee Yin.

The energy, science, technology, environment and climate change minister urged businesses to take advantage of the Net Energy Metering (NEM) programme, a solar photovoltaic (PV) initiative to encourage energy efficiency and the use of renewables, to enjoy tax incentives and lower electricity tariffs.

NEM allows electricity consumers in the peninsula to sell excess power generated from solar PV systems back to the grid.

However, over the last three years, only 17MW of its 500MW quota have been taken up.

Yeo said the government is targeting for commercial and industrial buildings to take up 450MW in the next two years.

She added that businesses that use solar energy will not only benefit from lower power tariffs under NEM, but will also be eligible for the Green Investment Tax Allowance and Green Technology Financing Scheme.

The ministry is looking to have more small and medium enterprises (SMEs) use solar PV systems, she said.

“These incentives are especially attractive for SMEs with factories. We hope more SMEs explore this.”

For this year up till May 10, the government approved a total of 16.6MW.

The total approved capacity for last year was just 18.24MW.

Asked whether domestic users will benefit from adopting solar energy, Yeo said those who use solar PV systems are already cross-subsidised by industrial and commercial users, resulting in lower power tariffs for them.

Under NEM, domestic users are allocated a quota of 50MW.

The 500MW NEM is expected to create 15,000 jobs and a capital investment of RM2.12 billion.

The initiative is part of Putrajaya’s efforts to increase the country’s use of renewable energy from 2% to 25% by 2025.

Currently, there are 110 registered PV service providers and 27 registered solar PV investors in Malaysia. – May 14, 2019.