The Enhancement of Solar Power System Implementation in LAS Building

Abstract

In Malaysia, the installation of PV panels in residential, industrial and commercial buildings has been imposed since 2001. This is due to the 8th Malaysia Plan (2001-2005) when Government introduced Malaysia Building Integrated Photovoltaic Technology Application (MBIPV) plan to encourage the application of renewable energy source in Malaysia. One of the alternatives that have been done by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA) was installing PV panels in government buildings in Putrajaya. Mostly, the installed PV panels only cover up to 30% of the energy demand in one level of a building. However, after operating for some years, the performance of the PV panels was degrading. Since the maintenance cost for PV system is quite high, and due to the factor of lack of knowledge on how to maintain the system, the installed PV systems are mostly abandoned now. The project was discontinued after the warranty period and the contract with the contractor end. Therefore, the aim of this study is to re-improvise the abandoned PV system in one of them which is Building of Section of Legal Affairs (BHEUU). Through this study, three new models of the BIPV system were proposed, namely Model 1 (4IWOB), Model 2 (4IWB), Model 3 (1IWOB), and Model 4 (1IWB). In this study, the technical and economic assessment has been performed. From the findings, results show that Model 3 (1IWOB) provides the best choice to replace the existing BIPV system where this model only use 1 unit of inverter and no battery storage is used. Saving can be saved up to 37.5% if Model 3 (1IWOB) is chosen to replace the existing PV system at BHEUU building, where the existing system is represented by Model 1 (4IWOB), which used 4 inverters, and no battery was installed.