Shafini Mohd Shafie

Malaysia intends to increase the share of renewable energy (RE) in its installed power capacity from the current 23%, or 8.5 GW, to 40%, or 18.0 GW, by 2035. Renewable energy sources, specifically solar and biogas, are unpredictable and subject to sudden changes due to weather conditions and feedstock availability. Furthermore, their integration with the current conventional plants is complicated. In relation to this, deploying energy storage has become the main agenda under the Renewable Energy Roadmap to achieve 40% installed capacity by 2035. When selecting the most adequate energy storage system, the technological, environmental and economic aspects need to be considered. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to review the current state of energy storage and the renewable energy situation in Malaysia. The significance of this paper is that it encourages RE consumption in Malaysia in parallel with the government’s target due to the deployment of energy storage in the energy supply system. It can serve as a guideline for policymakers in their penetration of the renewable energy sector.

Climate change and global warming are crucial problems due to carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions cause by fossil fuels consumption. Malaysia has a sustainable power mix but the industry and transportation sectors rely on fossil fuels to generate electricity. Energy conservation are important to improve or change the behavior of people in order to minimize energy usage because humans cannot longer rely on conventional energy sources. Due to the impact of climate change and global warning problems. The objectives of this study are (1) to determine the current practices of energy conservation among UUM students and (2) to investigate the relationship between current practices and energy conservation perspectives among UUM students. This study focuses on Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) students' academic session A221, which is semester 1 to semester 7 students. Researchers have used quantitative methods, the questionnaire was distributed using Google form that uploaded on social media and will receiving answers. A survey was conducted with 377 understudies to get information. The analysis was using statistical software package (SPSS) of software for using in data analysis. The results show the mean of attitude with total mean 31.87 is higher than the level of awareness, energy conservation knowledge and subjective norms, which mean that attitude is most influences perspective of students to energy conservation. Besides, the relationship between level of awareness, energy conservation knowledge, attitude and subjective norms are positive correlated. Based on the results and discussion, energy saving intervention strategies are proposed for student accommodation. Government should implement educational programs and campaigns to raise awareness toward energy conservation practice among students.

Transition to renewable energy in electricity generation need a serious study in variety of issues. Environment and economic perspective become the vital issue that need to study in local condition for penetration new concept of energy resources. Feeding a biogas into the fuel cell system seems an attractive way to less dependent on fossil fuel-based electricity generation. This study aims to optimize the plant location based on two aspect environment and economic. Capacitated Plant Location Model (CAPLOC MODEL) were used in determine the optimized location of the plant. The optimum design of power plant in Sarawak solely generated 847.91 MW and Pahang about 604.26 MW. Hopefully, the outcome of the study can provide the information for stakeholder in choosing the location for future energy system in Malaysia.

Rice farming is one of the most energy-intensive production systems. Energy is becoming a critical factor that requires special attention to maintain efficiency. This study aimed to identify the introduction of automated systems and determine the energy consumption of automated systems in paddy plantations. The research covered Muda Agricultural Development Authority (MADA) areas, a major paddy planting area in Malaysia. Observations and interviews were conducted with selected farmers to obtain detailed data on energy consumption. The paddy planting process consists of nine steps: soil compatibility, condition of paddy fields, soil preparation, planting process, fertilisation, water management, pest control, harvest, and paddy handling. Nevertheless, as an automation system, drones were the only technology used in MADA areas (Region II). The harvesting process consumes the most energy during paddy planting, with an average value of 238.17 MJ, followed by the paddy handling process at 74.34 MJ. By using more powerful automation systems, farmers can reduce dependence on energy and increase yield efficiency. Greater engagement and impressive contributions are needed to enhance the yield and resilience of the agriculture sector.

Malaysia's manufacturing and transportation sectors are largely reliant on fossil fuels. In 2009, fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, diesel oil, and palm oil were used to produce 94.5 percent of electricity. Concerns about energy security, crude oil price volatility, and climate change are all driving major changes in how energy, specifically electricity, is produced, distributed, and consumed. In this regard, renewable energy resources are becoming more appealing in Malaysia for long-term energy growth. There is because Malaysia has an abundance of renewable energy sources, the most important of which are biomass and solar. This article presents the potential use of pineapple wastes as one of renewable sources of energy (biomass) in Malaysia and their impacts towards environment.

Sustainable energy has become the main agenda globally. Among the renewable energy (RE) sources, solar provides huge potential in electricity production due to the abundance of sun radiation. As tropical country Malaysia enriched with solar radiation the whole year. This paper aimed to study the environmental perspective towards solar installation in the UUM campus building. Climate change sharply decreased by implementing the solar photovoltaic (PV) system up to 91.2 % compared to the conventional source of electricity supply. The global warming impact of solar panel installation was in the range of 44.74 to 178.99 g CO2EQ / kWh. The most contributing process towards this impact was transportation. Installation PV in UUM campus, could avoided carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 996 ton of waste recycled instead of landfilled or 47583 tree seedlings grown for ten years. Hopefully, the result encourages stakeholders to consume solar power as the primary source of renewable energy components on the way to achieving the Malaysia government’s target of 50% RE in electricity generation.

Technology is one of the important elements to be consider for a drastic change. The small and medium enterprise (SME), especially in the agricultural sector is faced many challenges in digital marketing. It becomes more worst when those enterprise also affected by Covid-19 pandemic. However, to overcome those challenges, a shift or transformation towards digital marketing is seemed to be an appropriate alternative to survive and become more competitive by local community. Therefore, this paper identified the challenges of social media marketing of selected small traders of agricultural products. Eight respondents have been selected and a semi structured interview was conducted between 20 March 2022 and 29 March 2002. The findings of the study indicate the main challenges faced by the selected small traders include knowledge, products and human resources.Based on the challenges, appropriate training has been identified which is the basic of digital marketing.

Malaysia is currently facing challenges in finding the right mix of energy sources for achieving sustainable energy supply. In term of fuel cell technology development, Malaysia is lacking the economic and infrastructure factors, besides local expertise, public perception, and industrial support. In fact, fuel cell technology at the present time is not being commercialized on a large scale in Malaysia. Due to much research is focused to the transportation sector, research on the other sectors, especially for power generation, is relatively lacking in Malaysia. For a start, this study aims to identify the criteria and sub-criteria for selecting the sources of fuel cell technology for power generation. An AHP analysis based on a group decision was performed and has found the impact on ecosystem (from environmental criterion), payback period, and investment cost (from economic criterion) are the most important sub-criteria for selecting the sources of power generation with fuel cell technology. This suggests that when it comes to renewable energy, the effect on environment will always come first in the mind. However, when it comes to the acquisition of fuel cell technology, no doubt that the economic factors are the main concern. This implies the focus should be on how to make the sources of fuel cell technology economical to justify its adoption. On the other hand, the less important criterion is technical, while the less important sub-criterion of technical is the technological maturity. However, this does not necessarily mean the technological factors are not important, but at the current stage of fuel cell technology development in Malaysia other issues seem to be more profound. For future study, few suggestions were made to improve the model.