The 2 largest energy consumption for an average Malaysian is their transportation and household usage. These 2 correlates to:
- An average Malaysia car: 3.39 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- An average Malaysian household: 1.97 tonnes of CO2 per year.
If a house is 100% solar-powered (not using any electricity from the grid), it is has a “CO2 Avoidance” of 1.97 tonnes a year.
As of now, the majority of Malaysia’s power is still generated from burning some sort of fossil fuel.
Burning fossil fuel releases greenhouse gasses such as CO2 into the atmosphere that traps heat and contributes to global warming.
Each and every one of us is contributing to these greenhouse gasses as an energy user.
To see how I derived those numbers, let’s start off with cars since almost everyone has one and can relate to it:
CO2 Contribution from an Average Car in Malaysia
According to the European Commission (I couldn’t find a reputable quote for Malaysia, but the numbers won’t stray too far from this I’d imagine), the average car releases 120.4 grams of CO2 per km.
Now to work out how much an average car pollutes in a year, we need to estimate the average mileage a typical Malaysian car has to go through in a year.
I found a figure from the Star News that the average Malaysian car travels about 2,349 km in a month.
Before we use this figure into our calculation, let’s see if this number is plausible. I will compare this figure with my personal commuting mileage to work.
2,349 km per month is equal to 78.3 km a day. Assuming that figure is a round trip mileage to and from work, the one-way distance to work is 39.15 km.
I know some people who commute to work way more than this every day. Also, including the occasional trips people make on the weekends, I would testify that the quoted average mileage of 2,394 km/month is realistic and can be used in our calculations.
With a mileage of 2,349 km/month, the average Malaysian car drives 28,188 km per year.
The average Malaysian car releases 3.39 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere in a year.
Great. Now let’s move on to your home:
CO2 Contribution from Average Malaysian Household
According to SEDA, the power grid pollutes the atmosphere with 0.694 tonnes of CO2 per MWh generated from burning fossil fuels.
The average Malaysian household energy consumption is 237 kWh per month (this translates to around RM145 a month, seems a bit low if you ask me).
This is a very conservative figure as modern homes with 4 AC’s will see their TNB bill circa RM250+ a month.
The Average Malaysian household contributes 1.97 tonnes of CO2 a year.
So 237 kWh a month works out to a contribution of about 1.97 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Conclusion
