Research Database

Grid-connected renewable energy projects could yield various benefits to a country, which include, among others, significant savings to fossil fuels and the corresponding reduction in GHG emissions. In this chapter, a 1.2 megawatt-peak (MWp) Tenaga Suria Brunei (TSB) solar PV power plant in Brunei Darussalam was used as a case study to determine the cumulative natural gas savings and avoided CO2 emissions that have been achieved throughout its operation between January 2011 and August 2017. Based on a simple methodology adopted by the US Environmental Protection Agency and using historical TSB electricity production and other parameters, as of August 2017, the power plant has saved the government an estimated value of USD 1.730 million, corresponding to about 128,964 MMBtu of natural gas. Cumulatively about 7961 tonnes of CO2 also has been avoided. In addition, further analysis of the expansion of 27 MWp into the existing TSB plant by 2035 could potentially save the government an estimated 8.553 million MMBtu of natural gas, and that the monetary savings could reach approximately USD 69.421 million based on the forecast on the Asian LNG price (Japan). Environmentally, the plant could also potentially avoid approximately 530,887 tonnes of CO2 by 2035.

Myanmar has abundant of renewable energy resources through the country. Among the renewable energy available, the potential of solar energy is one of the great interests in Myanmar. The government of Myanmar has set a plan to electrify the whole county in 2030. On the other hand, ASEAN has a target that is to increase 23% of Renewable Energy in ASEAN generation mix by 2025. For the time being, Myanmar has mainly relied on hydropower system for the electricity generation. Due to lack of water in summer season in Myanmar, Solar Energy will be a vital role in Electricity generation because of the high sunshine hours for that time. Therefore, the government of Myanmar is trying to increase the utilization of solar energy for the rural electrification. In this respect, the seventy percent of population are living in rural area where they cannot access the electricity. For the off-grid area, Myanmar has mainly emphasis on solar home system and mini-grid system to be sustainable, affordable and environmental friendly. This paper aims to describe the high potential of solar energy, current situation of solar energy implementations and the important of Renewable Energy of Myanmar respectively. This paper is also intends to know good opportunity for international investors and developers concerning solar energy. This paper presents Hence, The current status, future potentials of solar energy sector and solar energy development in Myanmar are presented in this context. In this paper, also up to date information is provided for the solar energy sector of the country.

Closing the gap between economy activity and environmental quality is one of the solutions for reaching “sustainable development” in Malaysia. To do so, the cubic polynomial functional form of EKC is utilized by accommodating renewable energy into the base of the EKC model and validating its hypothesis between CO2 emissions and GDP growth for the 1971–2015 period. The F-bounds, VECM Granger causality, CUSUM, and CUSUMSQ tests are utilized. The estimated results consistently show that the inverted N-shaped EKC hypothesis holds in Malaysia. Ceteris paribus, the CO2 emissions will be declined when the GDP reach RM2841.9 billion in 2030, which is beyond the sample period. The renewable energy has a negative significant effect on CO2 emissions, and the direction of causality is running from CO2 emissions to renewable energy. Also, the GDP growth will be the remedy for environmental pollution problems and that renewable energy is one of important elements to be considered for improving environmental quality. A tighter and concentrated environmental policy is needed to direct the environment–economic growth nexus toward a downward trend. Consequently, these results may help Malaysian policymakers to establish an energy policy that guarantees a balance between economic growth and environmental prosperity.

This study quantifies the environmental burdens created by a planned rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar installation on a university campus in Bangkok, Thailand, and models the potential of rooftop solar to meet the country’s renewable energy goals. Impacts are evaluated using Life Cycle Assessment and recommendations made for upstream purchasing decisions according to different scenarios. Results indicate that main contribution to impacts occurs in manufacturing by stage and from PV modules by component. Impacts generated by the mounting structure and inverters are also significant, and together these components constitute over 90% of environmental burdens. A climate change impact of 0.079 kg CO2-eq/kWh is produced over the lifetime of the system. Energy Payback Time is calculated as 2.5 years, and the Economic Payback Period is 7.4 years. The system is estimated to avoid 1.00E+06 kg CO2-eq over its lifetime. Installation of similar rooftop PV systems on 50% of university and government buildings in Bangkok could result in a net reduction of 4.80E+09 kg CO2-eq. Domestic production of components and recycling of materials is identified as a best-case scenario, with alleviations across all impact categories. Economic analysis suggests on-site electricity consumption paired with a net-metering policy scheme is the best way to incentivize PV solar energy installations.

Australia is an energy net self-sufficient country rich in energy resources, from fossil-based to renewable energy. Australia, a huge continent with low population density, has witnessed impressive reduction in energy consumption in various sectors of activity in recent years. Currently, coal and natural gas are two of Australia’s major export earners, yet its abundant renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, and tidal, are still underutilized. The majority of Asian countries, on the other hand, are in the middle of economic expansion, with increasing energy consumption and lack of energy resources or lack of energy exploration capability becoming a serious challenge. Electricity interconnection linking two or more independent grids within a country or at cross-border or regional levels has found its way into electricity markets worldwide. This concept allows for electricity exchanges that lead to optimized use and sharing of electricity generated from different sources. The interconnection also enables the long distance exploitation of renewable energy which would otherwise be physically impossible. ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and other regional groupings in Asia have initiated a number of interconnections to gain economic benefits. Asian’s hunger for energy for its economic development, climate change that has become a global and urgent issue to be solved, and Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources have all prompted increasing interest in a super-grid interconnection linking Australia to Asian grids, the Australian–Asian (Power) Grid (AAG). This paper overviews the existing grid interconnections as well as current initiatives at domestic, sub-regional, and regional levels worldwide, with a particular focus on Asia. The paper concludes with a critical appraisal on the benefits, potential, challenges and issues to be encountered by the AAG initiative.

There is an increasing interest in investigating the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis because it suggests the existence of a turning point in the economy that will lead to a sustainable development path. Although many studies have focused on the EKC, only a few empirical studies have focused on analyzing the EKC with specific reference to Indonesia, and none of them have examined the potential of renewable energy sources within the EKC framework. This study attempts to estimate the EKC in the case of Indonesia for the period of 1971–2010 by considering the role of renewable energy in electricity production, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration as the estimation method. We found an inverted U-shaped EKC relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the long run. The estimated turning point was found to be 7729 USD per capita, which lies outside of our sample period. The beneficial impacts of renewable energy on CO2 emission reduction are observable both in the short run and in the long run. Our work has important implications both for policymakers and for the future development of renewable energy in Indonesia.