Kota Kinabalu: Chairman of Board of Directors of K.K.I.P. Power Sdn Bhd Datuk Dr. Joseph Lee Han Kyun regrets the Energy Commission’s (EC) farewell “gift” on Dec. 26 which, he claims, is a 242 per cent jump in Implementation of Imbalance Cost Pass-Through (ICPT) surcharge.
The announcement comes less than a week before the official regulatory power handover from the EC to the Sabah Government on Jan. 3, 2024.
“The surcharge rates apply to all electricity consumers taking supply at medium voltage and above.
“This covers a majority of industrial players relatively of small or medium scale in the national context, shopping malls and hotels, etc, in Sabah and Labuan.
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He said these include construction, tourism, retail businesses, restaurants as well as management fees to tenants in affected commercial complexes.
“Residential consumers who use near 1,500kWh per month or with monthly charges in the vicinity of RM618 per month will have to be extra alert.
“Once their monthly consumption touches 1,501 kWh, all unit consumption will be subjected to ICPT surcharge of 7.21 Cents per unit kWh, which will mean a steep increase of RM 108.22 to their bill to a penalty-height of RM726.22 straight away,” he said in a statement.
Joseph concurred with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) that the determination of ICPT rates seemed against the fundamental principle of Incentive-Based Regulation that linked the ICPT surcharge rates with world energy prices that had been on downward trend the past six months.
The FMM criticised the Government for maintaining the non-domestic ICPT surcharge rates in Peninsular Malaysia, rather than lowering it.
Echoing the FMM, Joseph called for transparency in the ICPT surcharge rates.
“I hope once the regulating power is taken over by the Energy Commission of Sabah (ECoS) next year, the matter can be made more transparent to involve more locally grown industries and more relevant stakeholders.
“With the great number of standalone mobile generating sets running statewide due to the shortfalls of generation reserve capacity over the past six months, there may some explanation to see an increase in ICPT surcharge rates in Sabah.
“The decision on rate of increase must be transparent to the public. In this respect, SESB may owe an answer to the public on when they will be able to see light at the end of the tunnel.
“From many of the media releases by SESB, it seems that none of the ongoing generation projects like Large Scale Solar, Battery Storage System, nor the recently launched Upper Padas Hydro Project, will be the long term solution to help to level or rationalise the production cost of electricity in Sabah in the foreseeable future,” he said.
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