Abstract. Stingless bees (kelulut) keeping is now a trend in Malaysia. However, since demand for the source of colony in log is increasing, the log price is rapidly increasing. But, there is no data reported on the economic viability of meliponiculture in the current market price. Thus, the objective of this study is to clarify the economic viability of investment in meliponiculture in the current market price by engineering economic perspective. Investment in meliponiculture was analysed using Equivalent Annual Uniform Cost (EAUC), Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Breakeven Analysis. A small start-up with 30 units of logs or hives was considered in the analysis. All raw data was acquainted from current Malaysian market price, but only revenue from honey was considered. It was found that EAUC indicated that the annual worth of the log system is 23% better than the hive system. However, IRR calculation indicated that both the log and the hive systems offer margin exceeding 55% which is a very good return in general investment. In addition, it was also found that the log system had breakeven after 8th month, whereas the hive was 13th month. Better economic value could be obtained if revenue from by-products are considered. Thus, it can be concluded that meliponiculture is still very economically viable in Malaysia market trend, and the hive systems could be a better choice if splitting colony, maintenance, safety and aesthetics points of view are considered.
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This paper intended to investigate the performance of Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS) based Photovoltaic Thermal (PV/T) water collector under different operating condition. A CIGS photovoltaic with nominal power 65 W combined with an unglazed flat plate solar thermal water collector with effective area of 2 m was investigated. The performance was tested under different mass flow rates of flowing water which are 0.005 kg/s, 0.020 kg/s and 0.030 kg/s. For the mass flow rate of 0.030 kg/s, data was taken at different Peak Sun Hour (PSH) condition from 4.2 to 5.7. It was found that both electrical and thermal efficiency increased when the mass flow rate increased. Both electrical and thermal performance increased at the higher mass flow rate with the most efficient flow rate was 0.030 kg/s. The highest electrical and thermal efficiency was 4% and 23% respectively. In addition, when PSH increased, the electrical and thermal efficiency increased. However, at the PSH of 5.7 both efficiency slightly decreased. Further study on higher mass flow rate is necessary as the performance is not always proportional with mass flow rate. In this paper the value of the PSH was only limited to 4 points, which need to be further investigated for more values to clarify the correlation with the PV/T performance.
Abstract.Research on distributed power generation as an alternative method to the conventional power generation system continue to be developed to improve its commercialization capabilities. The cogeneration system and trigeneration system are technological improved alternatives in distributed generation where they offer enhancement and reliability in term of efficiency, emission performances and economic benefits. However, it is more feasible to implement the trigeneration system for most commercial and domestic distributed generations as the cooling demand is deliberately high compared to heating demand especially in hot and humid climate locations. Moreover, micro gas turbine is observed to be a beneficial prime mover in cogeneration and trigeneration system based on several criteria such as ability on acquiring high heat to power ratio characteristic as well as lower greenhouse gas emission. On the other hand, the role photovoltaic in building integrated system provides opportunities for renewable energy system engagement in trigeneration based distributed generation systems. This paper emphasize on summarizing the research work perform on cogeneration system or trigeneration system in hybrid mode with photovoltaic. There are also preceding sections on overviewing the state of art of cogeneration system and the trigeneration system as well as photovoltaic technologies in power generation.
Abstract. This study presents the economic performance of a photovoltaic (PV) and micro gas turbine trigeneration system (MGT-TGS) based hybrid energy system with various operation strategies. The hybrid system covers power, heating and cooling load of a selected building located in a tropical region. The core prime mover of each operation strategy is an MGT with power output capacity of 30kW or 65kW. An energy balance analysis was conducted and the economic performance of each operation strategy was analyzed using Life Cycle Cost Analysis. It was found that all operation strategies can only generate Net Profit when the electricity cost is not subsidized. Combination of photovoltaic and MGT-TGS with power-match operation strategy had the highest Net Profit and was the simplest hybrid system. This was mainly because this system did not require battery that has high cost. Thus, this is the most optimum operation strategy when economic performance is considered.
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