DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2022.44820

Public Support for Feed-in-Tariff and Net Energy Metering Policies in Malaysia: The Role of Policy Information

1School of Technology Management and Logistics, College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010, Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia

2Department of Environment, Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

3Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia

Received: 17 Feb 2022; Revised: 14 Apr 2022; Accepted: 18 Apr 2022; Available online: 26 Apr 2022; Published: 4 Aug 2022.
Editor(s): Grigorios Kyriakopoulos
Open Access Copyright (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Centre of Biomass and Renewable Energy (CBIORE)
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Abstract
Renewable energy (RE) policies have proven to be an effective tool for implementing RE. Despite various policies introduced, the RE deployment in Malaysia has been weak, especially individual RE uptake. Lack of policy support has been linked with inadequate policy awareness and information based on the knowledge deficit theory. This study investigates the support for the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) and Net Energy Metering (NEM) policy of individual solar photovoltaic (PV) technology among landed residents in Malaysia and the effect of information provision on policy support. A Solomon-four-group design was employed to measure policy support and test the relationship between information provision and policy support using a set of Likert scale questionnaires and a poster of FiT and NEM policy prepared in layman's terms as an intervention. Results show that majority of the residents agree with the environmental mission of the policy, except for the reduction of fossil fuel usage. For the economic aspect, the residents prefer a fixed rate for RE produced and generally agreed that high electricity consumers should pay for the RE fund. However, residents were less enthusiastic about the percentage deducted from electricity bills and the 'high electricity consumer' baseline.  There was a significant difference between items scores at pre and post-test when given the intervention, in line with the deficit theory. Therefore, policy information should be communicated strategically, focusing on thepolicy's social and economic components that have the greatest influence on Malaysians.
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Keywords: Policy support; Solomon four-group design; information provision; solar PV; Feed-in-Tariff; Net Energy Metering

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Section: Original Research Article
Language : EN
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