Economics of domestic solar hot water heating systems in Malaysia

Malaysia has favorable climatic conditions for the development of solar energy due to the abundant sunshine and is considered good for harnessing energy from the sun. This is because solar hot water can represent the large energy consumer in Malaysian households but, because of the high initial cost of Solar Water Heating Systems (SWHSs) and easily to install and relatively inexpensive to purchase electric water heaters, many Malaysian families are still using Electric Water Heaters to hot their water needs. This paper is presented the comparing of techno-economic feasibility of some models of SWHS from Malaysian's market with the Electric Water Heaters (EWH) by study the annual cost of operation for both systems. The result shows that the annual cost of the electrical water heater becomes greater than the annual cost of the SWHS for all models in long-term run so it is advantageous for the family to use the solar water heater, at least after 4 years. In addition with installation SWHS the families can get long-term economical benefits, environment friendly and also can doing its part to reduce this country's dependence on foreign oil that its price increase day after day.