Prospects of Solar Energy for Domestic Area in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia is a tropical country with abundant of sunshine throughout the year with an average of 12 hours of sunshine daily. The government has looked into the potential of renewable energy (RE) from the sources of solar, biogas/landfill, biomass/solid waste or hydro as another alternative to ensure the sustainability of energy resources and energy security. Shortage of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuel to generate electricity is the biggest issues that Malaysia is currently facing. Generating electricity using solar at domestic level could potentially reduce a 19% of electricity generated by using fossil fuel. By realizing the prospects of using solar, government has initiated the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT), amend few policies and improve solar panel efficiency as well as the importance of participation from the public. This paper will put forward a case study based in Selangor and analysis on additional of 5% efficiency improvement of the PV panel based on combination of 2 journals from Potential of Building Integrated Photovoltaic Application on Roof Top of Residential Development in Shah Alam and An Economic Evaluation of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Generation System for Residential House in Malaysia. It shows that by having additional of 5% efficiency, within 3 years it will result reduction of average 1.45 years for the payback period for the current FiT rate. Besides that, it is to identify the importance of contribution to public in electricity generation using solar. The result presents the potential in terms of public benefits by using solar energy in domestic area in Malaysia. From this study, it really shows that there are more advantages if public involve completely using the solar energy and it can directly support government vision. At the same time, the environment can be protected by reduction of CO2 emission result from power generation using fossil fuel.