Hoy-Yen Chan

Malaysia is a net importer of coal, petroleum products and piped natural gas. Moreover, its primary energy supply is dominated by fossil fuels, at about 93% in total, with coal and natural gas constituting the highest shares in electricity generation. Thus, there is need for Malaysia to take swift action in transitioning to a high renewable energy system for long-term sustainability and meeting its climate action commitment under the Paris Agreement. A net-zero emissions vision guided by a roadmap may effectively motivate and catalyse carbon-free energy deployments. In this paper, we revisit the carbon-free energy roadmap that was developed in 2015 and compare it with the current generation development plan to identify the gaps between them. We argue that the roadmap is still relevant to the net-zero emissions vision; however, we have also identified gaps that merit further research and improvement. The identified gaps mainly relate to more recent data, along with technology and policy developments. Accordingly, we put forward potential research suggestions to bridge these gaps for future development of a roadmap that would assist Malaysia in shaping a long-term plan towards realizing a high renewable net-zero power generation system. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Developing resilient energy systems’.

This policy brief highlights three key messages, i.e. 1) banks are diversifying into climate-friendly investment portfolios, 2) raising capital for coal-fired power plants will grow more difficult over time or lose financial support from present lenders and 3) Indonesia could turn capital raising challenges into opportunities for decarbonizing its power sector.

Solar collectors are technologies which using sunlight to collect heat energy. In this study, solar air collector-thermoelectric hybrid systemis designed and constructed. Performance testing is conducted in the lab. The size of this hybrid system is 97.5 × 59 × 12 cm. The manipulating factor is the mass flow rate which is fixed at 0.033, 0.0385, 0.044, 0.0495 and0.055 kg/s. The intensity of solar radiation is set at 700 W/m². Maximum temperature change (T_o -T_i) reaches 7.5 °C while maximum temperature change (T_back - T_hollow) reaches 16.7 °C. Maximum thermal efficiency of this hybrid system reaches 79.0% at the highest mass flow rate of 0.055 kg/s. The maximum electrical efficiency reaches 5.3% at the lowest mass flow rate of 0.033 kg/s. Maximum overall efficiency reaches 79% at the highest mass flow rate. The hybrid system has better thermal efficiency than a stand-alone solar air collector. Due to the increased overall efficiency, the proposed hybrid system is anticipated to promote wider application of thermoelectric hybrid system.

Flat plate solar air collector is the most common collector design, which is relatively simpler to fabricate and lower cost. In the present study, perforated plate solar collector was developed to improve the system thermal performance. A glazed perforated plate of 6mm holes diameter with square geometry was designed and installed as the absorber of the collector. The influences of solar radiation intensity and mass flow rate on the thermal performance were investigated. The perforated collector was compared with the flat plate solar collector under the same operating conditions. The highest values of thermal efficiency in this study for the perforated plate (PP) and the flat plate (FP) solar collectors were 59% and 36% respectively, at solar radiation intensity of 846 Wm^-2 and mass flow rate of 0.02 kgs^-1. Furthermore, PP collector gave better thermal performance compared to FP collector; and compared to previous studies, the present perforated design was compatible with the flat plate with double pass designs.

This study investigated the application of phase change material and fins into photovoltaic panel. The experimental design was divided into 2 cases: conventional photovoltaic and photovoltaic with phase change material and fins. The thermal performance and electrical efficiency was tested under the solar radiation simulator between 500 and 1000 W/m². The insolation intensity was tested by an incident-light photometer. The power of the nine halogen lamps was controlled by a simple voltage control device. It was found that temperature of normal PV module is constant after the tested time of 20 minutes. The temperatures of PV module with phase change material and fins were lower than a normal PV module throughout the testing duration. Approximately 2-6% of photovoltaic module temperatures have decreased and this have improved the electrical efficiency of about 1-4%. This indicated the use of phase change material and fins is able to decrease the photovoltaic module temperature and thus increase the efficiency of photovoltaic module cooling.