The Great Potential to Set Up Palm EFB Power Plants in Indonesia
Rapid economic growth in Indonesia since the beginning of democratization 1998, led to a huge increase in energy demand. In the years from 2004 to 2012, the power consumption has increased by nearly 75 percent. In general, the consumption in recent years has increased annually by about 9 percent. Population growth and the growth of the middle class are the main reasons that has particularly increased consumption of private households (69% increase at 41% of the total). For the future, it is assumed the national electricity demand with an annual growth of 10 percent to triple by 2030.
The evergrowing demand for electricity requires a parallel expansion of the Indonesian electricity production. In 2013, the power generation capacity was 216,189 GWh. The national electrification rate increased from 63.75 percent in 2009 to 80.38 percent in 2013. Due to the increasing demand for electricity existing production capacities and distribution networks are heavily loaded. The expansion of electricity generation capacity is therefore a current priority task of the Indonesian government.
The use of biomass as an energy source has been taken place in Indonesia for many years. In power generation, it is applied in predominantly agricultural in the form of smaller plants for their own use, such as palm oil mills and primary processors and widespread plantation forestry products. The huge volume and various kinds of biomass raw materials turn out to be not only many ways of converting biomass to energy, but also opening opportunities for related commercial service. Under certain conditions even additional revenue can be achieved through emissions trading of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the United Nations.
As the largest palm oil producer in the world, huge amount of EFB as the by products accumulated in the palm oil factory in hills. Some of the EFB is processed into mulch or to be fertilizer, which just digest little EFB out of the total stock amount. In case of the lack of electricity in Indonesia, especially in the islands outside of Java-Bali, the EFB can be used as the main fuel of the biomass power plant. SIMEC EFB chopping machine can chop the fresh EFB into 20-30 cm suitable for dryer, after dried which can be gasified and fed into the stove of the power plant.
As the rich potential of business for biomass plants, Palm oil producers, primary processors of agricultural and forest products has come to realize the value of the biomass by products. Due to the enormous volume of palm oil factories, agricultural and forest residues and by-products, and the unmet and growing demand for electricity, the island's electricity network is not only a market for small biomass plants for their own use, but also potentially larger commercial installations.