THE government wants to grow the renewable energy industry by opening up the market to foster competition, said Energy, Green Technology, Science, Climate Change and Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin.

Yeo, who was sworn in on Monday, said this will be done by revamping the current feed-in-tariff (FiT) system, where private, small-scale renewable power generators can sell the electricity they produce to the grid.

The aim is to make it attractive to invest in renewable energy projects, such as solar and biomass, from which electricity can be sold to main utility provider Tenaga Nasional Bhd.

“As a government, we do not dictate what the market thinks is the best (technology) for it. What we need to do is provide the environment for renewable energy to grow,” she said in an interview with The Malaysian Insight.

“If you’re familiar with the FiT quota, one of the first steps we need to do is revamp the whole system, so that it’s a conducive environment for renewable energy players.

“My role is not to dictate which technology will grow. My role is to make sure the macro environment is conducive.

“And, it makes business sense for people to invest in renewable energy.”

She was asked to comment on how the Pakatan Harapan government plans to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the country’s electricity-generation mix.

The goal is among the promises in the PH manifesto.

Yeo said the ministry will host a town-hall meeting on renewables in the coming week.

Below are excerpts from the interview.

Q: How is the ministry approaching renewables?

A: How do we create a macro environment that is business-friendly and truly bankable? (One way is) the building of a private solar farm across a structure.

We’re interested in making the owner of the solar panel have assets that are bankable, which means the government doesn’t need to come up with the money. These are some of the things we are trying to explore. Next week, we are going to have a town-hall meeting.

Later, we will meet academicians and analysts to get more figures before we can come up with a specific plan. I will not be able to answer you in terms of percentages, purely because we need the market.

Q: What is the ministry’s role in the development of science and technology?

A: When we talk about scientific development, it’s actually a long journey. A long journey from the lab to commercialisation that they (private firms) need to go through.

Most of them cannot reach the market. They die before they can reach the market. So, the role of the government is not really the market, but in the journey as it goes to commercialisation.

It used to be that every ministry has this development fund. But, this is not fixed yet. I’m not sure yet whether in the new line-up, if one ministry is to take care of everything, science and technology, and funding for commercialisation.

We must always remember that science and technology do not create jobs. Commercialisation creates jobs. And if we do the best we can to commercialise, we are able to create high-value jobs for the people.

Q: What are your main priorities now?

A: The immediate need is to really organise, because everyone is feeling very agitated because they don’t know where they are going.

One of the things we want to do is restructure, because the ministry of energy, science and technology is a very technical ministry. We need to organise our ministry in such a way that more people go into our core businesses. Then, we have a lean administration.

And also, the whole ministry has a lot of synergy. How do we actually merge some of the agencies together, so that they can be more efficient? That is our focus for the next two weeks.

A lot of people think KPI (key performance indicator) is the most important thing. I think culture is the most important thing. If we have the culture of integrity, pursuing excellence and future-focused. These are the three core values. – July 8, 2018.