Malaysia releases net metering guidelines

Malaysia releases net metering guidelines

The Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA) has published guidelines
for the new net metering scheme the Malaysian authorities launched in
January 2016 to replace the feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme, which will close at
the end of this year.

Peninsular Malaysia has been allocated a quota of 450 MW, while the state of
Sabah, on the island of Borneo, has been allocated 50 MW. A total of 20 MW
per year has been set aside for residential PV system owners in Peninsular
Malaysia through to the end of this decade, with 35 MW per year earmarked
for commercial and industrial owners of solar plants.

Only registered consumers of distribution licensees will be eligible to
apply for the net metering scheme. Parties that have failed to pay their
electricity bills will not be allowed to participate, SEDA said in an online
statement.

Rooftop arrays and panels installed on top of garages, car parks and similar
buildings will be accepted under the program. Ground-mounted PV systems will
be considered for inclusion on a case-by-case basis, as long as the
installations are located on the property of the applicant and have been
approved by the Energy Commission.

Residential consumers will be permitted to apply for systems up to 12 kWp
for single-phase systems and up to 72 kWp for three-phase systems.
Commercial and industrial owners of PV systems can apply for arrays up to 1
MWp size, or for 75% of maximum demand, if that is lower. Connection to a
distribution licensee's network will only be permitted via indirect
connections - in other words, only within the owner's internal distribution
board.

Net metering contracts will remain valid unless terminated by either party.
Foreign entities are eligible to apply for net metering as long as they are
customers of the distribution licensees in Peninsular Malaysia or Sabah.

Credit for excess electricity to net-metering consumers will be based on
prevailing displaced costs for the supply voltage at the point of common
coupling, SEDA said. It has created the following formula to calculate the
net billing of electricity:

Net billing = [Energy Consumed from DL (kWh) x Gazetted Tariff] - [Energy
Exported to DL (kWh) x Displaced Cost]

The prevailing displaced cost for a medium-voltage (1 kV to 50 kV)
connection point has been set at 0.2380 ringgit ($0.05)/kWh in Peninsular
Malaysia and at 0.2200 ringgit/kWh on the island of Borneo. The regulator
will roll over net billing or credit for up to 24 months, after which time
all credit is forfeited.

SEDA will require applicants to undergo a net-metering assessment study with
their distribution licensee before applying for the scheme. However,
residential system owners will not have to meet this requirement.
Prospective applicants can find more information at
https://services.seda.gov.my/nem

SEDA will process all applications within 30 days of receiving them. It will
charge a non-refundable application fee of 10 ringgit/kWp. Electricity sent
to the grid under the net metering scheme will be subject to the goods and
services tax.

SEDA requires two kinds of meters for the scheme. A bi-directional meter
with an import-export feature will be used to record amounts of electricity
that are used, generated or exported, while a PV meter/data logger/inverter
with monitoring functionality will be used to record the total amount of
electricity generated by a given solar system. In addition, check meters may
be installed to measure energy exports.

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Link to Original Article:
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/05/08/malaysia-releases-net-metering-guidel
ines/

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com