Renewable Energy from Palm Waste

Not only we can get bio-diesel from crude palm oil (CPO), but the Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) that used to be production waste from the palm oil mill has since become quite valuable. Instead of burning liquid petroleum gas (LPG), some factories have modified their furnaces to burn EFB as fuel. For every 1 tonne of CPO produced, the palm oil mill will produce 1.1 tonne of EFB as waste. Therefore, for countries like Malaysia and Indonesia where the oil palm industry has matured, you can get unlimited supplies of EFB.

The Indonesian government has looked into this seriously and the result is promising.

According to Directorate General of Estate Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, 5.3 million ton of EFB was produced throughout Indonesia in 1997. Utilization of this amount of EFB as power plant fuel would potentially result in generation of 229 MWe.

The project described in this report is a power plant combusting 220,000 ton/year empty fruit bunches (EFB) in a specially designed high-pressure boiler and generating 10.3 MW electricity with a steam turbo-generator. The plant will be located in Pangkalanbrandan (regency of Langkat), a small town about 80 km northwest of Medan, the capital city of North Sumatra province (see Map). The EFB is collected from six existing palm oil mills and transported to the site. EFB is a technically challenging fuel due to high moisture content, fibrous nature and the high potential of the ash to slag in the furnace. Equipment has been specifically designed for dealing with this waste. The estimated economic life of the power plant is 20 years.

The objective of this project is to generate electricity for sale to the grid of PLN (the State Electricity Company of Indonesia) through utilization of surplus biomass residue from palm oil mills. This renewable energy project will offset the requirement of diesel generation to satisfy the ever-growing demand of electricity in the surrounding area. Thus this project would fit well to the principles and rules of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Potential estimated net reductions in Greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are 55,650 ton CO2-equivalent per year. (PDF)