A novel approach, using regional climate model, to derive present and future Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

The dynamics of ecological sustainability in housing delivery: Developers’ perspectives

Housing delivery is facing substantial environmental sustainability threats. Consequently, the housing industry is constantly adopting broad-based actions to sustain the environment and make delivery more efficient and risk-averse. Such regulatory models are sometimes targeted at the housing developers’ readiness, the dimensions of market volatility, technology, and the firm's resources. These variables are more profound within an emerging economic context such as Malaysia, and previous research investigating sustainability agenda in housing delivery has neglected their impacts within the housing developer's perspective. This study tested regional-scale hypotheses regarding predictors of ecological sustainability across the state of Sarawak Malaysia. It was hypothesised that the critical dynamics of technology, developer's readiness, resources, regulatory framework, market turbulence, and uncertainty would increase the likelihood of cumulative environmental sustainability in housing delivery. A sample of 221 Housing developers registered under the Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers’ Association and allied professionals were sent a self-report online survey instrument, and 144 completed questionnaires were returned, indicating a 65 per cent response rate. Subsequently, SPSS and SmartPLS were used for data analysis. SPSS was used for data screening, while SmartPLS was used to assess the measurement and structural models. Structural equation models show that improved technology, developer's readiness, and regulatory apparatus are the better correlated with environmental sustainability performance

Sizing and economic analysis of stand-alone hybrid photovoltaic-wind system for rural electrification: A case study Lundu, Sarawak

Energy Consumption has been increasing at an alarming rate due to the growing energy need. More and more non-renewable sources are harvested to fulfill the energy demand resulting in and rising environmental health issues. However, harvesting Solar and Wind energy is considered as the best alternative in generating energy as these resources are renewable. Hybrid Renewable Energy System (HRES) has been grabbed the attention recently, as it involves with renewable, environmentally friendly sources to generate energy. The limitation of single Renewable Energy (RE) system is overcome by systems such as HRES. Even though it has been introduced different sizing and optimization techniques, due to the lack of system function, it had posed issues in calculating the optimized cost of a hybrid system considering the solar, wind resources and load demand as the optimization of the system cannot be predicted accurately. The aim of this research was to obtain optimization of a Hybrid PV-wind system in term of sizing and cost over the 20 years of the period of interest. The simulation of the PV-Wind Hybrid system using MATLAB for the verification purpose. This work includes detailed calculation using the Life Cycle Cost method for identifying all possible combinations. The combination of eleven Solar Panels, one Wind Turbine and nine Batteries was identified as the optimal Combination with LCC of RM 221,329.97 and has been verified using simulation results. Lastly, a sensitivity test was carried out using the exiting results of verified by the simulation to identify the most deterministic system in affecting LCC of the Hybrid system. Further, total Cost distribution for the Optimized hybrid PV-Wind system was conducted and identified that 50% of system cost was contributed by the Wind turbine. Determination of LCC, was done as a combination of Component and Operation costs. It was identified that Replacement cost contributed the highest while Wind turbine showed the highest Operation cost from the system cost. Thus, this work was included with the sensitivity test assuming 10% price increment for each component and it was concluded that price changes in Wind turbine results the greatest difference in LCC while further verified with the results of the simulation

Comprehensive review on the feasibility of developing wave energy as a renewable energy resource in Australia

The facts are that increasing energy demand, depletion of fossil fuel, and greenhouse gas emissions have increased the world's interest in renewable energy. Out of all RE options, Wave Energy (WE) is the least harnessed one despite the availability of WE Resource (WERs) in many countries and with the potential to cover a significant proportion of the world's energy needs. Australia, mainly in the southern part of the country, has plenty of this resource. Although recently, the Australian Government has started to focus on WERs as a Renewable Energy Source (RES) to cope with the energy crisis, research suggests that the country's progress in the WE generation to meet the energy demand is well below the potential generation capacity. However, insufficient research and studies address the issues and technologies in detail. This study examines the viability of further developing WE as a renewable energy source in Australia by evaluating the current constraints and challenges to achieving a satisfactory level of WE generation in the country. As a result, this study emphasizes the trustworthiness of WE in terms of several criteria. The availability of WERs within Australia and the status of producing WE are reviewed in this study. It also highlighted certain Australian technologies and devices that are now being tested or deployed in real-time. Moreover, this review is expanded by comparing the key developers in the WE sector to Australia to uncover some of the contributing elements in other countries that may have contributed to the growth of the WE generation in other nations. Finally, some of the barriers identified are lack of high-resolution data and social & environmental challenges. Some recommendations are given in the latter part of the review to accelerate WE production in Australia

Analysing wind power penetration in hybrid energy systems based on techno-economic assessments

Wind is an environmentally friendly energy source that can be harnessed as an on-shore and off-shore resource. Wind energy, combined with other renewable energy systems, has resulted in a more reliable, feasible, and efficient stand-alone system, known as a hybrid renewable energy system, in which excess energy is stored in batteries. To make hybrid renewable energy systems more efficient using economical energy storage, even in off-grid mode, various other energy combinations have been implemented. In analysing the various combinations of hybrid renewable energy systems, economic factors, such as fuel cost, cost of energy, net present cost, and capital cost, as well as technical factors, namely duty factor, excess energy, average energy production, and unmet load, are considered. The consideration of both economic and technical factors provides comprehensive guidance in determining the optimum load combination, storage type and capacity, off-grid and on-grid simulation details, energy balancing, scale of optimum production, risk assessments, and investor confidence. Accordingly, the operation of hybrid renewable energy systems has improved and become more reliable. Furthermore, the improvement of hybrid renewable energy system performance owing to techno-economic assessments has significantly reduced the costs of battery energy storage used in hybrid renewable energy systems as a backup system. In addition, such improvements in hybrid renewable energy system operation have enabled enhanced applications of these systems in the off-grid mode and resulted in the reduction of high grid upgrading and extension costs in various locations. Hybrid renewable energy systems facilitate the economical distribution of distributed electricity generation in various isolated areas with low density. The analytical methods described in the literature cover various aspects and factors considered in the techno-economic assessments of hybrid renewable energy systems in several countries. This study reviews the penetration of wind power into hybrid renewable energy systems as a solution to current energy deficiencies in different countries around the world. The review is conducted based on the available technical and economic factors of different countries to analyse the wind power penetration in various hybrid systems. Asian countries are noted to have the potential to penetrate wind energy into hybrid systems, yet some constraints, such as lack of experience and information, are a major limitation. Furthermore, in European countries, curtailment, high -wake effects, and financial difficulties are common. The technical development of wind power is insufficient in African countries. European countries are ahead in terms of the technical development of wind power penetration into hybrid systems. In some developed countries, such as Germany, hydrogen is used for energy storage, while batteries and generators are used in most Asian countries. In European, Asian, and North and South American countries, the solar/wind combination was identified as economical whereas photovoltaic and diesel/wind were in African countries. Despite these challenges, almost all countries have identified the potential for wind power generation using the available wind energy resources

A Comprehensive Review on Available/Existing Renewable Energy Systems in Malaysia and Comparison of Their Capability of Electricity Generation in Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the fastest emerging and developing countries in the world. To drive the economical workhorse, large amounts of power is required. The power demand has risen to 156,003 GWh per year in the year 2016, almost 30,000 GWh more than 5 years prior. Fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, oil, and diesel have been the driving force powering Malaysia’s grids. However, these resources will not last forever, and they do harm to our environment. To counter this, renewable energy (RE) projects have been constructed all around Malaysia. This paper discusses on available and existing renewable energy systems (single/hybrid) in Malaysia and provides a comparison of their electricity generation capabilities. The renewable energy sources that are covered in this paper include Solar, Hydropower, Biomass, Tidal and Geothermal. At the moment, hydropower is the largest renewable energy producer, contributing to almost 15% of the country’s total energy generation. A lot of resources have been channeled towards the initiative of hydropower and it has definitely borne much fruit. This is followed by Solar Energy. Even though it is not as successful as hydropower, there is still a lot of avenues for it to grow in a tropical country like this. Malaysia is still relatively new in terms of power generation using biomass sources. There has been a gradual increase in the power generation using biofuels through the years and its future does look bright. Energy generation from wind, tidal, and geothermal sources has been rather challenging. Because of Malaysia’s geographical location, it experiences slow winds on average throughout the year. This has led to insufficient output for its financial input. Besides that, Malaysia also has relatively low tide, if compared to other Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines. This contributed to the failure of tidal energy in Malaysia, but there have been signs of locations that can be suitable for this energy generation. Besides that, the country’s first geothermal power plant project failed due to a lack of preparation and discipline during the project’s execution. There is a high initial cost for geothermal projects, and the chances of failure are high if the necessary precautions are not followed. This could be one of the reasons why this branch of renewable energy has not been explored deeply