As a developing country with the rapid growth of economic and population like Malaysia, energy and electricity play a critical role towards sustaining and supporting the development of the nation. However, like many countries across the world, Malaysia is facing challenges in reducing the carbon footprint while attending the expanding growth. In the Eleventh Malaysia Plan, Malaysia has pledged to renew and increase its commitment to the environment and long-term sustainability by adopting green growth initiatives. According to the plan, one of the approaches towards pursuing green growth is by undertaking the sustainable consumption and production concept that promotes economic growth without compromising the environment. One of the strategies is to focus on promoting renewable energy sources as well as boosting up the development of the systems. The last decade has seen a growing trend towards renewable energy in Malaysia, particular in solar photovoltaic applications in recent years. This paper will investigate the potentials of installing 5 MW solar PV plants in the state of Sabah according to feed in tariff incentives and its financial and environmental assessment in order to promote large scale solar PV in Malaysia. This paper calculates the economic viability through IRR and simple payback indicators and the environmental impact through CO 2 emission reduction indicator for the proposed 5 MW plant.
Malaysia is a country made up of Peninsular Malaysia and the states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo. The population in this country has reached 29.72 million today, with 80% of the total 23.5 million people live in Peninsular Malaysia, 3.5 billion in Sabah and 2.6 billion in Sarawak. Energy has been the most important catalyst towards the rapid growth of Malaysia’s population as well as the economy. The fast pace developments, as well as the rising living standards and greater income per capita, have stimulated a tremendous energy demand. However, the high consumption of fossil fuel resources is known to give more damage than good to the environment. Therefore there has been a trend in developing countries towards shifting to renewable energy resources in order to mitigate the impact on the environment. Malaysia is no exception in this commitment in the energy balance towards a more sustainable development. Malaysia has promised to continue pursuing green growth, in terms of policy and regulatory framework, and green technology investment. According to the plan, Malaysia is committed to continuing the required capacities, capabilities and skills towards supporting the green growth development including the renewable energy initiatives [
Malaysia is known for a diversified primary energy resources country. The primary energy supply includes oil, natural gas, coal and a variety of renewable energy resources mainly hydro and solar power and biomass. However from a total of 141,266 GWh (2013) fossil fuels call for 90% of Malaysia electricity generation mix. [
Sabah is a state in Malaysia located on the island of Borneo next to Sarawak as shown in
order to meet the growing demand, Sabah’s electric utility―Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd (SESB) is planning to expand the generation capacity over the next 10 years, and phases out some MFO plants from the overall mix. Total generation from diesel by SESB in 2014 accounts for of 488 GWh and SESB is still dealing with the issue of lack of generation capacity to meet the growth in electricity demand. Sabah electricity demand is forecasted to grow at a rate of 5.8% through out the coming years as shown in
FiT mechanism was introduced by the Malaysian government under National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan (2010) and is currently carried out by
Sustainable Energy Development Authority, Malaysia (SEDA Malaysia) under the authority of by Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA). FiT is a policy described as a mechanism that allows RE producers to generate electricity from any RE resources by offering long-term contracts for the generated power to be sold to power utilities at a fixed premium price. The objectives of FiT mechanism are
・ To increase RE contribution in the national power generation mix;
Installed Capacity | Fit Rates (RM per KWh) |
---|---|
Up to and including 4 kW | 0.8249 |
above 4 kW and up to and including 24 kW | 0.8048 |
above 24 kW and up to and including 72 kW | 0.6139 |
above 72 kW and up to and including 1 MW | 0.593 |
above 1MW and up to 10 MW | 0.4651 |
above 10 MW and up to and including 30 MW | 0.4162 |
・ To facilitate the growth of the RE industry;
・ To ensure reasonable RE generation mix;
・ To conserve the environment for future
・ To enhance awareness on the role and importance of RE [
The FiT rate for solar photovoltaic for 21 years from commencement date is shown in
According to Malaysia Eleventh Plan, one of the approaches towards pursuing green growth is by undertaking the sustainable consumption and production concept that promotes economic growth without compromising the environ- ment. One of the strategies is to focus on promoting renewable energy sources as well as boosting up the development of the systems. Prime Minister YAB Dato’ Sri MohdNajibTun Abdul Razak announced that Malaysia would voluntarily reduce its emissions intensity of GDP by up to 40% based on 2005 levels, by 2020. [
This analysis consists of 3 main elements;
・ Estimation of the energy production potential,
・ Financial feasibility in terms of simple payback and IRR from the proposed 5MW plant,
・ Assessment of the anticipated reductions in CO2 emissions if the plant were constructed
To estimate the energy production and financial feasibility of the hypothetical PV plant, this study uses RETScreen software. RETScreen was created in 1996 by Natural Resources Canada’s Canmet Energy Research Center to provide low- cost preliminary assessments of RE projects. Independent reviews of RETScreen software validate its results all reporting RETScreen calculations to be within 0% - 6% of actual energy production [
Scenario 1 (S1): proposed one 5MW solar PV plant for each diesel plant in Sabah.
Scenario 2 (S2): proposed 5MW solar PV plants to cover for 2025 electricity production from diesel.
The Proposed 5 MW PlantThe proposed solar PV power plant-which is a grid-connected system with 5 MW installed capacity-consists of 15,625 unit one axis tracking modules with a total area of 30,506 m2. The slope and azimuth angle was taken as zero for all the studied sites.
The annual amount of electricity generation, which is the amount of equivalent DC electrical energy actually delivered by the proposed grid-connected 5 MW
Item | Specification |
---|---|
Manufacturer PV module type | JA Solar Poly-Si |
Module number | JAP672-320/4BB |
Module efficiency | 16.51% |
Dimensions | 1956 mm × 001 mm × 45 mm |
Maximum System Voltage | DC1000V |
Operating Temperature | −40˚C - 85˚C |
Maximum Series Fuse | 15A |
Initial cost | MYR 40,000,000 |
---|---|
O & M cost | MYR 100,000 |
Feed-in Tariff | MYR 465/MWh |
Project life | 21 years |
Inflation rate | 3% |
solar PV power plant to the utility, was calculated for all the 8 locations, with all plants located within 1.5 km radius from main substation or grid to minimize transmission and distribution loss. The results are exhibited in
As illustrated in
Retscreen software calculated the Pre-tax IRR (internal rate of return) and simple payback. The internal rate of return IRR is the discount rate that causes the Net Present Value (NPV) of the project to be zero. The pre-tax IRR was calculated using pre-tax cash flows, while the after-tax IRR was calculated using the after tax cash flows. In this paper, we only calculate the pre-tax IRR and the sim-
ple payback for each proposed solar PV plant. From the financial analysis, it can
also be found the average of 9.8% IRR was observed. From the proposed large scale plants the shortest payback period noted was 10 years as shown in
Fossil fuel power generation has a high CO2 emission especially those from oil combustions. The application of the renewable energy such as solar power plant can reduce the greenhouse gas emission such as CO2, CH4 and N2O. Althought here is a plan of reduction in diesel power plants in Sabah, the current existing plants may contribute an amount of CO2 therefore by replacing these diesel
plants with large scale solar PV emission mitigation can be achieved. As shown in
This study examines the technical and economic potential of solarphotovoltaic- grid connected system in Sabah, Malaysia. The current policy of the feed in tariff is included in the study. This study investigates potential locations for 5 MW solar power plant with grid connected to fill up the peak load demand with objec- tive to replace diesel power plants all over Sabah. Two scenarios were introduced to observe capability of one single 5 MW plant and another scenario with number of plants to replace the diesel generation plants in the next 10 years. This study found that for the selected locations, the proposed system can generate electricity annually with average of 8.377 GWh/year. From the financial analysis, it can also be found the average of 9.8% IRR was observed. From the proposed large scale plants, the shortest payback period noted was 10 years. With 21 years pro- ject lifetime, this shows that the application of Solar photovoltaic for grid- connected system is quite feasible financially. From the environmental aspect, this proposed system also proves that it can reduce the CO2 emission at least 260 kT CO2 in Scenario 1 and an amount of 1.55 GT CO2 mitigated for Scenario 2. Based on the technical, economic and environmental indicator, it can be seen that the application of the proposed system is quite feasible to supplement the electricity grid and supply electricity when the load demand is in peak period. In order to promote developments in RE installations, the government may introduce investment incentives due to high initial cost of the solar plant installation.
Huda, M., Okajima, K. and Suzuki, K. (2017) Tapping the Potential of Large Scale Solar PV System in Sabah: The Feasibility Analysis. Energy and Power Engineering, 9, 108-118. https://doi.org/10.4236/epe.2017.92009