PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – Indonesia, endowed with abundant natural resources, holds tremendous potential as a future energy source. Bioenergy derived from biomass sources like sawdust, wood chips, and palm oil waste could serve as a viable substitute for fossil fuels across various sectors, including transportation, electricity generation, industries, and residential use.
Bioenergy, especially through biomass products, offers environmentally friendly alternatives and plays a significant role in boosting the electrification rate and national energy security.
According to Ego Syahrial, a Special Staff Member at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Indonesia, the energy potential in Indonesia from biomass could reach an impressive 56.97 gigawatts (GW) of electricity. Furthermore, Indonesia has ambitious plans to develop over 700 GW of renewable power capacity by 2060, with a substantial 60 GW coming from bioenergy power plants.
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One significant thing to advantage bioenergy potential is by implementing ‘cofiring’ in coal fired power plant (CFPP) which already exists. Cofiring program has been running since 2020 with biomass mixture level about 1% to 15%. It depends on kinds of boiler and material availability.
“Biomass-cofiring would be realized in 113 units of steam power plants belonging to PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) in 52 locations with total capacity 18.664 megawatt (MW), it would be using many sources of biomass, such as, saw flakes wood flakes, palm oil waste with the mixture level from 5% – 15%,” Ego said, as in the official statement to Palmoilmagazine.com, Friday (6/10/2023).
He also mentioned this would be about to get some goals, such as, escalating the economy of powerplant procurement in energy mixture nationally, reducing green-house gas emission, and accelerating ‘green’ process as available steam powerplants.
In 2023, cofiring program would be running in 42 locations and it is estimated to produce 2.740 giga watt hour (GWh) of environmental energy and consume 2,2 million tons of biomass. In the first semester this year, cofiring successfully produce green energy about 325 GWh, that reduced emission for about 321 ktCO2. Total biomass used in the powerplants reached 306 thousand tons. (T2)
