Abstract
Malaysia is one of the fastest emerging and developing countries in the world. To drive the economical workhorse, large amounts of power is required. The power demand has risen to 156,003 GWh per year in the year 2016, almost 30,000 GWh more than 5 years prior. Fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, oil, and diesel have been the driving force powering Malaysia’s grids. However, these resources will not last forever, and they do harm to our environment. To counter this, renewable energy (RE) projects have been constructed all around Malaysia. This paper discusses on available and existing renewable energy systems (single/hybrid) in Malaysia and provides a comparison of their electricity generation capabilities. The renewable energy sources that are covered in this paper include Solar, Hydropower, Biomass, Tidal and Geothermal. At the moment, hydropower is the largest renewable energy producer, contributing to almost 15% of the country’s total energy generation. A lot of resources have been channeled towards the initiative of hydropower and it has definitely borne much fruit. This is followed by Solar Energy. Even though it is not as successful as hydropower, there is still a lot of avenues for it to grow in a tropical country like this. Malaysia is still relatively new in terms of power generation using biomass sources. There has been a gradual increase in the power generation using biofuels through the years and its future does look bright. Energy generation from wind, tidal, and geothermal sources has been rather challenging. Because of Malaysia’s geographical location, it experiences slow winds on average throughout the year. This has led to insufficient output for its financial input. Besides that, Malaysia also has relatively low tide, if compared to other Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. This contributed to the failure of tidal energy in Malaysia, but there have been signs of locations that can be suitable for this energy generation. Besides that, the country’s first geothermal power plant project failed due to a lack of preparation and discipline during the project’s execution. There is a high initial cost for geothermal projects, and the chances of failure are high if the necessary precautions are not followed. This could be one of the reasons why this branch of renewable energy has not been explored deeply.
Highlights
Introduction to renewable energiesThe demand for electricity increases new ways of electrical generation are required that is both cleaner and safer
The number of solar PV additions by each of the countries has plateaued in recent years due to hurdles faced within the country
Taking an example out of Canada or Brazil here would be a good idea as there are many rivers and water bodies that could be exploited for hydroelectricity generation, building more mega-dams like Bakun could harm the rainforests
Summary
The demand for electricity increases new ways of electrical generation are required that is both cleaner and safer. In Malaysia, research has shown that about 3.8% of the population reside below the poverty line Most of these people are located in rural areas in Malaysia. The main source of Malaysia’s energy supplies is from Natural Gas, Hydro, Oil, RE and Coal Among these five Energy Sources (ES), coal supplies the most energy in terms of electricity production at 26,177 GWh. The types of RE which were researched are Solar, Wind and Hydropower. Malaysia has been amply endowed RESs such as Solar and Biomass Energy Being able to implement these ESs especially in areas not connected to the national grid would be beneficial to Malaysia to improve the living quality of Malaysians in rural areas
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