Alhassan Salami Tijani

Nowadays, the demand for electrical energy is increasing due to the application of electrical equipment such as air conditioning, refrigerators, television, computers etc. Grid-connected photovoltaic is a network that allows for significant penetration of electricity by PV generation into the national utility grid under Net Energy Metering (NEM) incentive. Under NEM incentive, the owner can offset the energy for 10 years to reduce the electricity billing. Unfortunately, after that, the self-consumption (SELCO) program is implemented. Under SELCO program, the energy generated by PV will be consumed by the owner and there is no rebate for excess energy to the grid. This paper represents the techno-economic analysis of different rated power of PV design installed for residential applications. The 1.04kWp, 1.56kWp and 2.08kWp PV are designed to charge 5.544kWh battery and simulated by using PVsyst software. The payback period is calculated under Net Energy Metering (NEM) 3.0 incentive. As a result, 1.56kWp is the optimize sizing for grid-connected PV-battery with electricity billing saving at RM730.20 per year under one-on-one program and RM660.61 under SELCO program. Thus, return on investment (ROI) of this system design is 16.5 years.

This study aims to analyse the effect of temperature and wind speed on the performance of different types of photovoltaic (PV) systems at a different state in Malaysia and how it affects the economics and environmental impact assessment in the present year of 2018 as well as future years in 2030 and 2040. Three types of grid-connected solar PV modules namely Mono-Crystalline, Poly-crystalline, and Thin Film were selected to be implemented in different cities of Shah Alam, Chuping, Alor Setar, Ipoh and Kota Kinabalu. A mathematical model was adopted to estimate the performance characteristics of the solar PV modules. Based on the data in the present year, the highest power output produced by the Mc-Si module for Alor Setar city is given by 33.40 MWh/year while the lowest amount of power output provided by this PV panel is about 28.18 MWh/year in Shah Alam. Furthermore, an area of 144 m2 for the Mono-Crystalline PV module can satisfy the total energy requirement by the resident as it was the most profitable to be implemented compared to Poly-crystalline and Thin Film. The findings of this study can serve as important information on the economic viability of installing PV systems in the selected cities in Malaysia.

Emerging technology in the electronic industry has led to miniaturization of electronic devices such as iPhones and laptops. Heat dissipation is required to maintain high performance and long-term reliability of these devices. Micro heat sinks and novel working fluids such as nanofluids are becoming popular. Until recent times the full potential of hybrid nanofluid in heat transfer has not yet been exploited. In order to address the lack of adequate modeling data in this field, the aim of this study is to systematically model and investigate computational heat transfer characteristics of Al₂O₃-Cu/water hybrid nanofluid in micro heat sink. Volume concentration in the range of 0.1%-0.5% was used for the working fluid. Hexagonal micro-pin fin heat sink with staggered arrangement was simulated in ANSYS Fluent. Reliable experimental result from literature was used to validate the accuracy of the results. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that the Nusselt number increases with increase in Reynolds number and this observation is consistently the same at different concentrations and pin spacing. Lower transverse pitch was observed to dominate the enhancement of Nusselt number. There was a 10% increase in heat transfer coefficient at 0.5% nanofluid concentration when compared to 0.1%. This phenomenon is highly influenced by the transition of the Re into turbulent situation which eventually enhances the heat transfer characteristics. Also, lower transverse pitch promotes swirling flow situation. At 0.5% hybrid nanofluid concentration, it was observed that the Nusselt number increased from 14.00 at transverse pitch of 3.81 mm to 17.00 at a transverse pitch of 1.81 mm and this corresponds to 16.05% enhancement of Nusselt number. The pressure drop penalty of the working fluid is a result of increase in viscous effect of the hybrid nanofluid, especially at high concentration.