The Malaysian Government has set an ambitious target to achieve a higher penetration of Renewable Energy (RE) in the Malaysian energy mix. To date, Malaysia has approximately 2% of its energy coming from RE generation sources compared to the total generation mix and targets achieving 20% penetration by 2025. The current energy mix for Malaysia power generation is mainly provided by natural gas and coal. The discussion will cover the traditional sources of generation including natural gas, coal and big hydro stations. In addition, the paper will cover in depth the potential of RE in the country, challenges, and opportunities in this sector. This study can give an initial evaluation of the Malaysian energy industry, especially for RE and can initiate further research and development in this area in order to support the Government target to achieve RE target of 20% by 2025.

Electric vehicles (EVs) could be used to address the issues of environmental pollution and the depletion of non-renewable energy resources. EVs, which are energized by a battery storage system, are becoming attractive because they keep the environment clean. Furthermore, the cost of EVs is becoming cheaper. Thus, EVs will become a significant load on utility distribution system in the future. EV chargers play a significant role in the expansion of EVs. The input current of an EV charger with a high total harmonic distortion (THD) and a high ripple distortion of the output voltage can impact battery life and battery charging time. Furthermore, the high cost and large size of the chargers are considered other issues in EV development. This work presents the complete design process of a universal EV charger with a special focus on its control algorithms. In this regard, a novel control algorithm based on the integration of voltage-oriented control (VOC) and the sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) technique is proposed to ensure effective Levels 1, 2, and 3 battery charging. A simulation of the universal EV charger was conducted and assessed in MATLAB–Simulink. Moreover, a laboratory prototype was constructed with a TMS320F28335 digital signal processor (DSP) programmed as the controller to validate its operation and performance. The findings show that the proposed charger is able to provide a controllable and constant charging voltage for a variety of EVs, with an input current of low total harmonic distortion (THD) and an almost unity power factor.

Electric supply is listed as one of the basic amenities of sustainable development in Malaysia. Under this key contributing factor, the sustainable development goal aims to ensure universal access to an affordable, clean, and reliable energy service. To support the generation capacity in years to come, distributed generation is conceptualized through stages upon its implementation in the power system network. However, the rapid establishment growth of distributed generation technology in Malaysia will invoke power quality problems in the current power system network. In order to prevent this, the current government is committed to embark on the development of renewable technologies with the assurance of maintaining the quality of power delivered to consumers. Therefore, this research paper will focus on the review of the energy prospect of both fossil fuel and renewable energy generation in Malaysia and other countries, followed by power quality issues and compensation device under a high renewable penetration distribution network. The issues and challenges of distributed generation are presented, with a comprehensive discussion and insightful recommendation on future work of the distributed generation. In accordance with the addressed highlights in this paper, it would serve as the criterion on upcoming revolution of distributed generation integrated along with the traditional network in Malaysia.

Electricity generation from renewable energy sources such as solar energy is an emerging sustainable solution. In the last decade, this sustainable source was not only being used as a source of power generation but also as distributed generation (DG). Many literatures have been published in this field with the objective to minimize losses by optimizing the DG size and location. System losses and voltage profile go hand-in-hand; as a result, when system losses are minimized, eventually the voltage profile improves. With improvement in inverter technologies, PV-DG units do not have to operate at a unity power factor. The majority of proposed algorithms and methods do not consider power factor optimization as a necessary optimization. This article aims to optimize the size, location, and power factor of PV-DG units. The simulations are performed on the IEEE 33 bus radial distribution network and IEEE 14 bus transmission network. The methodologies developed in this article are divided into two sections. The first section aims to optimize the PV-DG size and location. A multi-objective function is developed by using system losses and a voltage deviation index. Genetic algorithm (GA) is used to optimize the multi-objective function. Next, analytical processes are developed for verification. The second section aims to further enhance PV-DG by optimizing the power factor of PV-DG. The simulation is performed for static load in both systems, which are the IEEE 33 bus radial distribution network and IEEE 14 bus transmission network. A mathematical analytical method was developed, and it was found to be sufficient to optimize the power factor of the PV-DG unit. The results obtained show that voltage stability indices help minimize the computation time by determining the optimal locations for DG placement in both networks. In addition, the GA method attained faster convergence than the analytical method and hence is the best optimal sizing for both test systems with minimum computation time. Additionally, the optimization of the power factor for both test systems has demonstrated further improvement in the voltage profile and loss minimization. In conclusion, the proposed methodology has shown promising results for both transmission and distribution networks.

In the time of rapid growth, there is an increase of demand for a reliable and stable power supply. Due to this, utility companies are forced to operate their power system nearer to its maximum capabilities since system expansion may be a costly option. As a result, the power system will be at risk to voltage collapse. Voltage collapse phenomenon is known to be complex and localised in nature but with a widespread effect. The ultimate effect of voltage collapse would be total system collapse which would incur high losses to utility companies. Thus, on- line monitoring of power system stability has become a vital factor for electric utility companies. This paper looks into combining a power flow program in MATLAB environment with two line stability indices, which are fast voltage stability index (FVSI) and line stability index, LQP for automatic contingency ranking. The IEEE 14 Bus Test System is used as a standard test system. This approach investigates each line of the system through calculating an indicator that varies from zero (no load condition) to unity (maximum permissible loading condition). The basic concept of maximum power transfer through a line is utilized. Correlation study on the results obtained from contingency ranking and voltage stability analysis were conducted and it is found that line outages at the weak lines would cause voltage instability condition to a system. Subsequently, using the result from the contingency ranking, weak areas in the system can be identified. Verification of this technique with other existing technique shows a strong agreement between them.