Performance evaluation of solar photovoltaic system in Kuala Terengganu: a feasibility study

Abstract

Alternative cost and other maintenance fees that remain increasingly yearly while the supply of fuels are depleting is making hard for Malaysia to be able to sustain its palm oil supply and development. Hence, the urge of Malaysian Government to establish renewable energy has never been greater. Additionally, Malaysia is also ecologically concerned and ready for any policies that have a solving mechanism in the energy crisis. The government aims to establish energy generation in the most economically worthy to ensure the sustainability to fulfil the current and future demand. Therefore, the motivation of this feasibility study was to perform an efficiency evaluation of solar photovoltaic system in order to develop a large scale solar industry in a coastal state. The present study focuses on analysing the technical and financial viability of potential renewable energy as well as cogeneration capacity based on the future prospect of solar photovoltaic energy in the state of Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. RETScreen 4.0 was used to predict expected energy yield for one year comparison period in the study state. The simulation showed that solar photovoltaic system was a feasible alternative energy to replace the conventional fossil fuels with total electric exported to grid as high as 131.4 MWh yearly within 15 years of payback period. Nevertheless, solar photovoltaic energy had sufficiently mitigated the annual greenhouse gas emission to 100% as compared to natural gas.