A case study on the potential photovoltaic applications in Langkawi island

Alia Abdullah Salleh; Nur Azfahani Ahmad; Siti Jamiah Tun Jamil

A case study on the potential photovoltaic applications in Langkawi island

2019

Alia Abdullah Salleh | Nur Azfahani Ahmad | Siti Jamiah Tun Jamil

With 27 million tourists every year, the tourism sector in Malaysia has exponential growth, by 3% to 5% annually. Due to this growth, the sector has an escalated demand in electricity consumption. Tourism accommodations were developed in many islands in Malaysia. Therefore, the national grid needs extensive power generation capacity to cater to the demand. Since Malaysia is primarily reliant on fossil fuels for generating electricity, fossil fuel depletion issues might threaten the reliability of electricity supply. This may lead to future energy scarcity and may affect the sustainability of the tourism sector, particularly for islands that have depended on tourism as an economic resource. This paper will investigate the potential of adopting photovoltaic (PV) systems for a tourism island in order to allow this sector to be resilient in accessing self-sufficient electricity. Langkawi Island, a prominent tourism island in Malaysia, has been selected for the case study in order to understand the daily energy demand and the potential of installing PV panels to resorts and chalets in the island. The study has proven that chalets in Langkawi have the potential to generate electricity from PV with an expected monthly saving of 50% and gain an acceptable payback period of 17 years.

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