KUALA LUMPUR: Comintel Corp Bhd’s supply of renewable energy (RE) to Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) will be delayed by seven months, as its gasifier system is not operating at its optimisation capacity.

This follows approval by the Sustainable Energy Development Authority Malaysia (Seda) to extend the commencement date of Comintel’s feed-in-tariff (FiT) to Dec 31 from May 31.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday, Comintel said its unit Comintel Green Technologies Sdn Bhd (CGT) sought for the extension as it could not meet the scheduled commencement date, as the programme set-up and gasifier system optimisation had taken longer than expected.

“The gasifier system could operate, but was not operating at its optimisation capacity to produce syngas in a stable condition to supply to the syngas generator to produce electricity.

“Thus, the Biogen software team has scheduled its trip to come back to the plant by the end of June to continue the work. In the meantime, our technical personnel are doing their best to operate and optimise the gastifier system,” said Comintel. It added Seda had approved the extension in a letter dated July 14, which was received yesterday.

The green energy venture by CGT, which was initially expected to contribute positively to the performance for the current financial year ending Jan 31, 2016 (FY16), will only start contributing in FY17, said Comintel.

It estimates the annual revenue contribution from the RE business at RM6.67 million. CGT was granted an FiT approval on July 9, 2014, by Seda to convert biomass into RE and supply it to TNB at 42.31 sen per kWh for a 16-year period.

CGT last month signed a RE power purchase agreement with TNB to start supplying the RE from May 31, 2015. Comintel shares closed down 3.8% at 38 sen yesterday. Its market capitalisation stood at RM53.2 million.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on July 23, 2015.