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Malaysia RE goal by 2020

Renewable energy in Malaysia plan

Malaysian Government policy towards Renewable Energy

Malaysia has started to promote the use of renewables since the year 2000 through the introduction of the Five Fuel Policy where renewable energy sources such as biomass, biogas, mini-hydro and solar PV have been identified as alternative fuel sources for power generation. The principle adopted was to use market forces to deliver the intended outcomes towards electricity generation and the Small Renewable Energy Programme (SREP) was introduced by the Government in 2001 to support the policy. However, through the mechanism the progress of RE development in the country has been quite minimal. These results provide valuable lessons in identifying the barriers from such an approach and the key lesson is that a ‘business-as-usual’ approach is not sustainable, appropriate or productive. Thus the Government of Malaysia introduced National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan (NREPAP) which was implemented starting from the 10th Malaysia Plan (2010). The REPAP provides long-term goals and a holistic approach with the main objective to spearhead the sustainable development of renewable energy. The NREPAP seeks to increase generation of RE power capacity in Malaysia to 2,080 MW by 2020 and 4,000 MW by 2030.

How solar turbine technology work

This technology converts solar irradiation into solar heat which is fed into a steam turbine to provide power generation.

The main benefit of this technology is that it use less solar panel which can be very expensive when it is used to generated lots of energy.

The steam exiting the steam turbine is condensed with an air-cooled condenser. For the case to power the unisel library, the condenser is not needed as we don’t need to recycle the UNISEL lake water.

The solar field is a modular distributed system of solar collector assemblies (SCAs) connected in parallel via a system of insulated pipes. Cold heat-transfer fluid (HTF) or the oil, flows at approximately 280/300°C from the steam generator into a cold HTF header that distributes it to loops of SCAs in the solar field. Each loop consists of four SCAs. HTF is heated in the loop and enters the hot header, which returns hot HTF from all loops to the solar steam generator. The HTF enters the solar field at 280/300°C and leaves the field at 400°C.

The SCAs collect heat via a trough of parabolic mirrors, which focus sunlight onto a line of heat collection elements (HCE), welded in line at the focus of the parabola. The mirror-HCE trough is mounted on a mechanical support system that includes steel pylons and bearings. Single-axis tracking of the sun ensures best use of sunlight.

The absorber tubes are contained within the HCE and serve to convert solar irradiation to heat. A dual-fuel fired HTF heater (gas or diesel) is used in the HTF loop to provide the required thermal energy during cloud cover or low-solar insolation, in order to avoid shut down of the steam turbine and ensure it is capable of producing high megawatt capacity power output.

In the solar steam generator, the HTF generates steam with a temperature of approximately 380°C. In order to enhance the efficiency of the steam turbine, the steam is further heated in a dual-fuel fired booster heater to a temperature of 540°C. The superheated steam is supplied to the condensing steam turbine, which generates power. 

solar turbine power plant

A solar turbine power plant uses the energy in solar radiation captured by so-called solar collectors. Solar power is a renewable source of energy. The solar radiant energy reaching the earth's surface is around 1.783*10¹⁴ KJ or 1.353kJ/s per square meter. Solar plants provide energy ranging from a few kilowatts to a few megawatts. The constraints associated with solar plants are size, space, high capital cost, and the inevitable fluctuations in the daily supply of solar radiant energy.

Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a utility-scale renewable energy option for generating electricity that is receiving considerable attention in the southwestern United States and other sunbelts worldwide.

Although many people think of photovoltaic (PV) cells when thinking about solar power, CSP technologies that concentrate sunlight to create heat that can be used to generate electricity are also becoming more popular. While there are some PV cells that utilize concentration, the focus of this article and most CSP applications is on technologies where concentrated solar energy heats a fluid, gas, or solid which is then used to generate electricity using steam.

CSP technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers that collect the solar energy and convert it to heat. The thermal energy can then be used to produce electricity via a steam turbine or heat engine driving a generator. CSP systems can be classified by how they collect solar energy: 1) power tower systems, 2) linear concentrator systems, and 3) dish/engine systems.

1) Power Tower system

Power tower systems consist of numerous large, flat, sun-tracking mirrors, known as heliostats that focus sunlight onto a receiver at the top of a tower. The heated fluid in the receiver is used to generate steam, which powers a turbine and a generator to produce electricity. Some power towers use water/steam as the heat-transfer fluid. Individual commercial plants can be sized to produce up to 200 megawatts of electricity.

2) Linear concentrator system

Linear concentrator systems capture the sun's energy with large mirrors that reflect and focus the sunlight onto a linear receiver tube. The receiver contains a fluid that is heated by the sunlight and then used to create steam that spins a turbine generator to produce electricity. Alternatively, steam can be generated directly in the solar field, eliminating the need for costly heat exchangers. Currently, individual systems can generate about 80 megawatts of electricity.

3) Dish/engine system

Dish/engine systems use parabolic dishes of mirrors to direct and concentrate sunlight onto a central engine that produces electricity. The dish/engine system produces relatively small amounts of electricity compared to other CSP technologies-typically in the range of 3 to 25 kilowatts.