Seda may have broken the law, says Pua

The Sustainable Energy Development Authority (Seda) may have breached the law if the companies it approved for the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) programme did not first conduct a Power System Study (PSS), says Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua.

This concern, he said, was because such a study would take 30 days to complete but several approved companies controlled by former chief secretary Mohd Sidek Hassan’s daughter Suzi Suliana were only set up three weeks before the application deadline.

“How can three-week-old companies complete a study that is supposed to take 30 days? It’s almost impossible. Unless Seda can show us this study, Seda has broken the law,” Pua (right in photo) told a press conference at the DAP headquarters in Kuala Lumpur this morning.

According to the Renewable Energy Act 2011, an eligible producer must before applying for a FiA, engage Tenaga Nasional Berhad to conduct a PSS which would take 30 days to complete.

“The question to ask is whether such a PSS was ever conducted by any of the 12 successful companies, especially since eight of them were set up only 21 days before the application deadline of Dec 2, 2011,” Pua said.
The PSS criteria was similarly laid out on Seda’s website which read: “Before applying for the FiT application, the interested party is required to contact the distribution licensee for a PSS for any Renewable Energy installation of 180 kilowatt (kW).

Previously, Pua had claimed that Suzi and her associates’ 12 companies managed to obtain 32.4 percent or 45.9 megawatt (MW) out of the quota set for solar energy under the FiT scheme through a complex layer of holding companies and joint-ventures.

This, he had said, was despite the anti-monopoly measure to limit a company to between 1MW to 5MW.

This collection of companies, Pua had claimed, secured quotas far above those from established power players such as Cypark Resources Bhd and Petronas Power Sdn Bhd.

The FiT programme is aimed at encouraging the renewable energy industry by allowing private companies access to the national grid through the sale power generated from alternative sources to Tenaga Nasional Bhd.