Figure 53: Solar Irradiance Map of Malaysia

3.4.6 Hydrogen Production from Renewable Energy

Alternatively, hydrogen could also be produced from renewable energy sources such as ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), wave/tidal/current energy and solar energy without the need for CCS because they do not produce carbon dioxide.

a. Solar energy

Solar conversion techniques to produce hydrogen:

• Electrolysis: water electrolysis using electricity and is capable of producing pure hydrogen of 108.7 kg of hydrogen from 1 m3 of water.

• Thermolysis: thermochemical reactions to produce hydrogen driven by the heat produced from concentrated solar power (CSP)

• Photoelectrochemical water splitting (photolysis): biological or electrochemical reactions that produce hydrogen using solar photons Figure 53 and 54 gives the solar energy potential in Malaysia that shows the solar irradiance map and the average yearly solar irradiance. Solar energy is dependent on solar distribution based on specific land area grids that can be covered with photovoltaic cells, including electrolyzers.

One way to jump-start the hydrogen economy in Malaysia is to convert the excess energy from existing and future solar energy farms into hydrogen as energy storage that could be used to continue to supply electricity at night via fuel cells or to refuel the public and private transport or homes.

In terms of transportation, one of Honda’s solar-powered hydrogen production and filling station facilities at their Swindon factory uses pressurised alkaline electrolysis of water at their solar farm and has a hydrogen-producing capacity of 20 tonnes/yr. Honda also claimed that their FCX Clarity could run about 16000 km/yr with their 6kW solar panel system (Crosse, 2014).

63 Figure 53: Solar Irradiance Map of Malaysia Source: Hussin et al. 2012 63