PETALING JAYA: There is no question over political will of the government in its effort to promote the uptake of renewable energy (RE), says Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) board member Rajiv Rishyakaran.

His statement was in response to economist Prof Dr Jomo Kwame Sundaram's comment that there was a lack for political commitment to push for a swift implementation of the RE agenda.

Jomo said that the enforcement of alternative energy appeared to be lagging.

"Malaysia is on the right trajectory to achieve its RE targets," Rajiv said in a statement on Wednesday (June 26).

The Bukit Gasing state assemblyman said the government had shown its commitment in pushing to increase the uptake of renewable energy (RE) from 2% in 2018 to 20% by 2025 with the implementation of a progressive solar policy.

He said this target was significantly higher than the 13% by 2030 target set by the previous administration.

Rajiv said the Net Energy Metering policy, where excess electricity generated by rooftop solar installations was injected back to the grid to offset the intake from TNB on a one-to-one basis, made the installation of rooftop solar far more attractive.

"This is arguably the most progressive solar policy in South-East Asia," he added.

He said the government had also liberalised the right for solar energy companies to not only supply and install solar panels, but also to just sell solar energy directly to the consumer.

"With this groundbreaking policy, customers are no longer bound to TNB as their only supplier of electricity but have 34 other options," he said.

This, on top of RE financing incentives like the Green Investment Tax Allowance and Green technology Financing Scheme (GTFS) 2.0, made RE cheaper and more accessible to both consumers and private sectors, he added.

"These policies have not only been attractive to the private sector, but even local governments in Johor, Penang and Selangor have actively pursued solar installations," he said.

Rajiv said in addition to opening the space for private and individual investment in solar, the Energy Commission has also expanded the Large Scale Solar scheme by another 500MW.

"As a testament to the openness of this tender process, over 700 companies have purchased the tender documents and are in the midst of preparing their submissions," he added.