This paper introduces a novel hybrid active-passive reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) transmitter for downlink multi-user communication systems. The RIS elements can switch between active and passive modes to optimize energy efficiency (EE) and system performance. The EE maximization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing the RIS element scheduling, beamforming coefficients, and power allocation coefficients, subject to user rate requirements and maximum amplification power constraints. The Dinkelbach relaxation is used to transform the mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem into a nonfractional optimization problem with a two-layer structure, which is solved using an alternating optimization (AO) approach. An exhaustive search method is proposed to determine the optimal operating mode for each RIS element, followed by alternating design of the RIS beamforming and power allocation coefficients. To reduce computational complexity, a joint RIS element mode and beamforming optimization scheme is developed using the Big-M formulation technique. Numerical results show that the proposed hybrid RIS transmitter achieves higher EE compared to baseline schemes, and the system EE can be maximized with only a few elements operating in the active mode.This paper introduces a novel hybrid active-passive reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) transmitter for downlink multi-user communication systems. The RIS elements can switch between active and passive modes to optimize energy efficiency (EE) and system performance. The EE maximization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing the RIS element scheduling, beamforming coefficients, and power allocation coefficients, subject to user rate requirements and maximum amplification power constraints. The Dinkelbach relaxation is used to transform the mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem into a nonfractional optimization problem with a two-layer structure, which is solved using an alternating optimization (AO) approach. An exhaustive search method is proposed to determine the optimal operating mode for each RIS element, followed by alternating design of the RIS beamforming and power allocation coefficients. To reduce computational complexity, a joint RIS element mode and beamforming optimization scheme is developed using the Big-M formulation technique. Numerical results show that the proposed hybrid RIS transmitter achieves higher EE compared to baseline schemes, and the system EE can be maximized with only a few elements operating in the active mode.