Sustainable resource availability by optimizing economic and environmental factors in Malaysia’s power generation mix

Population growth and economic development contribute to the rise in the demand for electricity. To meet the demand, electricity generation has been relying on fossil fuels. This practice has three major drawbacks: inevitable resource depletion, environmental concerns, and supply risk. Renewable fuels are touted to be the future of sustainable power generation. However, there is a need to assess and optimize the use of the available resource in an effective and efficient manner. In order to accomplish the desired objectives, this study adopted the multi-perspective approach for efficient utilization of resources, both in terms of cost and diversification, and also aimed to propose the optimum combination of technologies for electricity generation in Malaysia. In this regard, first, the potential of the resources was identified from the Malaysian prospective compliance with the five fuel energy action plan 2020. All the five fuels were examined in terms of economic, environmental and security parameters, and evaluated in the terms of cost to measure the total exposure in monetary units. For the economic analysis, the LCOE cost quantification method was used. Similarly for the restriction of carbon emission, a carbon-tax policy was proposed and a novel technique was designed for the quantification of excessive cost of security in the electricity generation industry. This study applied the simulation mathematical modelling and the graphical evaluation approach to optimize the power generation mix in terms of cost and diversity index. Hence, this study will assist the policy-makers in making efficient long-term policies considering the impact of various factors on total generation cost while adopting the concept of diversification for an efficient and uninterrupted power generation process.