Potential of Onshore Wind Energy in Malaysia: A Brief Study on Wind Conditions

With the dedication to tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity, the Ministry of Economy Malaysia had launched the National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR) in 2023, which set the target to shift Malaysia's energy systems from fossil-fuel based to low-carbon systems, by increasing the capacity of installed renewable energy (RE) from 4 % in 2023 to 22 % by 2050, and to almost fully phase out coal from power generation, in order to achieve Net Zero by 2050. As the renewable energy sources in Malaysia are primarily solar, hydrogen, and biogas, there are inadequacy studies and exploration on wind energy in Malaysia. This paper aims to study the onshore wind conditions in Malaysia and explore the potential of onshore wind energy in Malaysia. Wind energy is clean, inexhaustible, has the capacity to generate greater power, and has lower energy cost. Even though the average wind speed in Malaysia is around 1.8 – 2 m/s, which is considered low, there are some wind hotspots in Malaysia that are worth explored. This paper explores onshore sites that have annual average wind speed higher than 7m/s for both Peninsular and East Malaysia based on satellite data from Global Wind Atlas. It was found out that there are several locations in Sabah, Kedah, Perlis, Perak, Johor, Pahang and Kelantan that yield annual average wind speed above 7m/s. Some future recommendations worth study and implementation were elaborated in the paper.