Factors affecting mini hydro power production efficiency: A case study in Malaysia

Abstract

Energy consumption is expected to increase by 50 per cent between 2005 and 2030. Therefore, Malaysian National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan is introduced in 2010 to increase the use of renewable energy due to the growing concerns about the pollution from energy sources that come from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. In this paper, our focus is more on mini hydropower since it is the most cost effective energy technologies to be developed for rural area. Mini hydropower depends a lot on weather conditions, such as rainfall, temperature, humidity and others besides the system itself. To study how these factors affecting the power generation by mini hydro power plant in east coast region, data sets are collected from Meteorological Department Malaysia from January 2010 until December 2015. A statistical analysis is conducted to see the correlation of these factors with the power generation by mini hydro power. From the analysis, it can be concluded that humidity and rainfall have significant effect on power generation by mini hydro. These two variables can be used to predict energy production by mini hydro power. For future research, machine learning method such as support vector machine, artificial neural network and others can be used to predict the energy production by mini hydro power plant.