One cannot deny that Sabah, apart from Penang, are the best spots to produce electricity from sunlight. Many critics and parties opposed to solar energy as one of the practical solutions to solve our electricity needs for remote areas must understand there must be valid reasons in adopting solar energy as an alternative.
In a recent news report, published in a local paper (29 June 2009) the Sarawak State Government signed an MOU with a local based company in collaboration with a German company to do research and developing solar hybrid systems for the rural and remote areas of Sarawak. Yesterday (30 June 2009) we read on bernama news report that Tenaga Nasional Berhad is currently doing a research on solar energy for domestic consumers market which indicates that solar systems are here to stay.
As stated by the President and Chief Executive Officer of TNB, Datuk Seri Che Khalib Mohamad Noh in the news report, the purpose of the research is to produce a solar product that is affordable to the consumers and to generate electricity from the sun. The supply of electricity using solar is more relevant compared to other form of renewable energy method, he claimed.
At the moment, by lining our roof with solar panels may be expensive but can save us cash in the long run. In addition to getting free energy from the sun we just can’t put a price on the future of our planet.
The cost for opting for a solar system might be too expensive. The costs could be reduced if only proper studies and implementation of the systems are carried out by professionals. That is what TNB are doing now for their new investment on solar technology.
As a reference and example to the Sabah Remote Schools Solar Hybrid Project implemented in Sabah by the Education Ministry, the following analysis and comments should be considered by the relevant authorities so that the cost to implement could be reduced and to prevent the systems from being a failure like what happened to the first solar stand alone project in Sabah implemented a few years back which costs the tax payers money millions of ringgit.
The preliminaries as requested by JKR are very extensive and add a lot of costs to the project. There are about 13 packages and each package requires a new Four Wheel Drive and ocean-going boat ( those projects in an island ). This is excessive and divert funds from the supply of electricity to the remote schools. There are many other excessive spending items in the preliminaries which are up towards 15pc to 20pc of the project costs. ( Most projects have preliminaries of about 5pc )
The design and sizing of the systems are difficult to understand. The bidder has to give warranties on the equipment but no information is provided on what loads or operational cycles will be involved on the equipment.
Proper operation of any power systems depends completely on a clear understanding of the load in kilowatts and the daily/weekly/seasonal energy demand. But, in this case, none is provided.
The required design of the system on site adds many unnecessary costs. These include a 100 metres concrete walkway, full concrete slab under the solar array and photovoltaic array structure with a walkway. These costs seem very unnecessary.
The current international “best practice” is to use a state-of-the-art hybrid system for power requirement of 10kW up to 200kW. The JKR system is clearly intended to be a stand alone power system. JKR also calls for grid-connected solar panels and inverters which are not appropriate in such small systems. TNB have been using proper solar hybrid systems for about five years now, thus leading to demonstrate success of the hybrid system in Malaysia.
The battery component is specified as very high cost gell battery. These batteries are normally used in high mission critical systems such as submarines, high reliability comms systems and military applications. To use them in a remote power system where other components are not even industrial grade components is not appropriate and quite odd.
There is also very clear attempt to favour certain suppliers. The solar panel specs are lifted entirely from one manufacturer’s data sheet. This prevents the Government from getting competitive quotes from other suppliers. The use of poly crystal technology is completely acceptable around the world but excluded in this spec. The specified inverters are also only available from one supplier in Germany. The specs are lifted word for word but the actual name is not used. This implies favouritism for one supplier of stand-alone inverters. Also it excludes state-of-the-art “hybrid inverters” as mentioned above.
The inverters are specified to operate up to 8 in parallel yet the chosen supplier shows on their data sheet that only 4 can operate in parallel. One or two sites up to 20 inverters are needed. This will lead to a lot of reliability and service issues in the future.
The specification for the power system is only four pages with only one line describing the power system. There is no spec or requirement for the control system and little or no explanation anywhere about how the system should work. There is also little or no correlation about the system’s components. On one site the solar is 45kW, the inverter section is 24kW and the diesel is 12.5kVA ( about 9kW ). Clearly if the solar failed, the diesel would have to run the load….can that be achieved on 12.5kVA diesel engine?
The spec specifies that the remote Scada ( System Control in Data Acquisition ) should use the JKR system. It seems to be a conflict of interest that they are the consultants yet specify their own “in house” products. It also means that the bidder must “test and develop” the JKR Scada system on this project. This means the JKR system is not even functional. The spec also calls for the use of a particular grid connected inverter. This clearly favours one supplier. Why? However it is well known that grid connected inverters are used on large grids and it seems that JKR have borrowed guidelines from the Malaysian MBIPV ( Malaysian Building Integrated Photo Voltaic ) projects. These inverters are only fully suitable on large grids like the TNB main grid in Kuala Lumpur.
Lead Acid Industrial Batteries selected and used. This is the most cost effective form of storage for Hybrid systems.
Actually, there are already many foreign companies based in Malaysia employing Malaysians transferring technology and expertise to them but are being sidelined by JKR. If only JKR use their services by using their products millions of ringgits could be saved. At the moment, JKR insists on fully imported products where there is not even a service office and spare parts available in Malaysia. World class research laboratories have carried out computer simulation on stand alone solar systems vs solar hybrid systems. The same results have been shown in that good hybrid system is about 20pc more efficient than a stand alone system.
This can be seen in many parts and remote areas of Sabah where the solar stand alone equipment are till around and not functioning. A stand alone system involves particular battery charging through a bidirectional “inverter charger” and this also leads to an inefficient operation. The JKR design is also seems inevitable that the power system can easily become unstable as the component sizing is unbalanced. In the preliminaries it includes that the bidder must provide training courses on solar technology up to 20 personnel. This indicates that JKR are not fully conversant in solar power system design.
Then why are they the design consultants on these projects? The Government should appoint a professional firm to handle this in order to save time and, most importantly, the cost and making sure the systems are working properly and not a complete failure.
The future certainly looks bright for solar technology as concern over climate change increases. Global demand for electricity is growing rapidly, requiring clean solutions and solar energy can provide that solutions!
