Renewable Cogen Asia

In palm waste power generation industry, there is a major shift in the technology for the last five years. Previously, boiler ash removal was manual with formation of clinkers along with ash. But now, the ash removal is automatic, resulting in increased efficiency. In addition, these days, empty fruit bunch is also used as a boiler fuel along with fibre and shell. Some equipment suppliers are even trying to use 100% EFB for their boilers and they are likely to succeed soon. We got involved in the implementation and studied the performance of a 14 MW palm oil waste cogeneration plant, which use  EFB as fuel and the results are good.

A decade ago, throughout Malaysia and other countries, we have seen palm shells being used as road material. But now (in 2009), the price of palm shell has gone as high as 50 USD/ton. This is mainly because of CDM, as several cement industries use palm shell as an alternative to coal for getting CER revenue.

From the commercial point of view, there is an increased competition among equipment suppliers and the investment costs are reasonable. In general, the size of palm waste cogeneration plants is smaller when compared with sugar cogeneration plants.

Recent developments in the industries have created a demand for EFB, which was previously dumped or open burnt. Even now a small quantity is in use at the plantation sites as a fertilizer. Due to high potassium content in the ash, formation of clinker, which was a major issue, is being sorted out.

The projects implemented two to three years ago received good revenue from CDM CER sales using old methodology for decay calculation. But recently, several modifications were made in the methodology resulting in lower CER from decay.

Currently, four or five modern cogeneration plants are under installation which uses EFB as fuel. Of late, ultra modern power plants are being installed in Southeast Asia with a lot of environmental protection measures, which are at par with developed countries. Composting EFB is also an option for EFB management and it is also eligible under CDM projects.

We have worked with several palm waste projects around the globe with sizes ranging from 2 MW to 14 MW.  Refer our recent publication section for additional information on palm waste cogeneration.

If careful and innovative project development, implementation and operation  approaches, tactics, strategies are followed from the beginning stage itself then it’s possible to reduce the overall project cost to around 20 to 30% thereby leading to considerable increase in IRR. For services related to palm waste cogeneration, contact us.