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Evaluating the Renewable Energy Sources in Malaysia

Abstract

Energy  consumption  has  risen  in  Malaysia  because  of  the  developing strategies  and  increasing  rate  of  population.  Depletion  of  fossil  fuel  resources, fluctuation  in  crude  oil  prices,  and  emission  of  new  environmental  problems  due  to the  greenhouse  gases  effects  of  fossil  fuel  combustion  have  convinced  governments to  invest  in  development  of  power  generation  based  on  renewable  energy  resources. Recently,  power  generation from the  renewable  energy  resources has been taken into account  in  the  energy  mix  of  every  country  to  supply  the  annual  electricity  demand. The  current  work  will  give  an  overview of  the  renewable  energy  sources in  Malaysia emphasizing  more  on  the  marine  renewable  energy  sources  status  for  Malaysia  in terms  of  the  available  methods  of  resource  assessment,  potentiality  and  the  existing policies  that  support  the  utilization  of  the  marine  renewable  energy  as  an  alternative source  of  energy.  A  survey  was  carried  out  to  analyze  the  best  possible  methods  for the  resource  assessment  of  Marine  Renewable  Energy  as  well  as  the  resource potentiality  in  Malaysia.  Based  on  the  survey  carried  out,  it  was  found  that  Malaysia has  a  great  potential  in  Wave  Energy  and  Wind  Energy,  where  the  potential  for Wave  Energy  and Wind  Energy  is found to be  approximately  53%  and 24%  which is significantly  a  higher  number  considering  the  ocean  conditions  in  Malaysia  and  also the  survey  result  was  compared  by  calculating  the  power  being  generated  by  Wave and  Wind  in  Kuala  Terengganu  region  and  it  can  be  projected  that  Wave  and  Wind energy  has  the  highest  potential  as  agreed  by  most  of  the  respondents  .  The  results obtained  in  this  research  are  significant  for  the  growth  of  Ocean  Renewable  Energy in Malaysia if used on a  large  scale.