Background The global commitment to climate change mitigation enforces the worldwide development of renewable energy sources. Therefore, various studies have investigated the growth of renewable energy in Malaysia, most commonly based on biogas and hydropower. In this article, the dynamics of Malaysia’s renewable energy development is critically examined by using the latest official national reports and other reliable resources. Results The study reveals the influencing factors that shape renewable energy growth in a developing country endowed with substantial biomass resources, such as Malaysia. Likewise, it evaluates the evolution of renewable energy in the electricity sector. In 2017, renewable energy represented about 3.5% of the Malaysian electricity generation mix with 1122 MW of installed capacity. A closer look into the renewable energy resources, i.e. biomass, biogas, solar and small hydro power, revealed that over 47% of the grid-connected power generation came from solar photovoltaic (PV) energy. While solar PV capacity continues to accelerate, the development of other renewable resources, especially biomass, is seeing growth at a significantly slower pace. This article investigates the underlying causes of the skewed development rate as well as the potential strategies that may be adopted to promote a diversification of renewable energy resources. In light of this, introduction of a new national bioenergy policy is proposed, through which four essential programmes could be implemented: (i) enhanced bioenergy conversion efficiency and waste management, (ii) biomass co-firing in coal power plants, (iii) conversion of biogas to biomethane and bio-compressed natural gas (bio-CNG), (iv) large-scale biomass power plants. A total of 4487 MW of additional power could be connected to the grid upon successful implementation of a large-scale biomass power plant programme. Conclusions The establishment of a comprehensive and inclusive national bioenergy policy will lead towards a sustainable future of renewable energy development in Malaysia.

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Growing demand for air conditioner (AC) in developing countries has hit an alarming point. Enforcing higher efficiency standards for cooling appliances is one of the easier initiatives that governments can implement to reduce energy consumption and emissions of potent greenhouse gases. Malaysia has adopted the Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) in 2013 to regulate the energy performance of five common household appliances including ACs. This work sheds light on the overall improvement of AC’s energy performance after MEPS implementation. A rigorous data collection exercise was conducted to build a comprehensive sales and technical database of MEPS-compliant ACs covering the years 2013-2015. In 2015, the average energy efficiency ratio (EER) of ACs sold in the local market is 3.4, and the cumulative electricity saving and CO2 emission reduction after MEPS implementation are 1,764 GWh and 1,178 ktCO2eq respectively. The results from this study will contribute significantly to the review of the effectiveness of MEPS implementation in developing countries.

Microgrids are receiving tremendous attention due to increasing need to integrate Distributed Generations (DG) and to provide reliable power to critical loads. Proper power management in microgrid is required to regulate the system voltage and frequency, maintain power quality, and manage DGs. A microgrid system has been studied in this paper, which includes two natural gas generators, an energy storage device, solar PV, and a wind turbine. The DGs are modeled in details using PSCAD software and the practical constraints of the components are considered. The Virtual Droop Control (VDC) method for microgrid power management is proposed and described in details. The proposed technique has been applied to adjust the active and reactive power of each component in order to manage the system. Unit commitment algorithm has also been implemented to improve the system efficiency.