The achievement of PLTBg is still quite low, at 120 megawatts. This can continue to be optimized to fulfill the target of achieving the energy mix. During the period from 2022 to 2024, some 50 megawatts of PLTBg are expected to be realizedJakarta (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government optimizes the use of alternative energy sources from biogas power plants (PLTBg) that produce green energy from palm oil liquid waste (POME) to achieve the country's new and renewable energy mix target.
Director of Bioenergy, Directorate General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Edi Wibowo, remarked that the installed capacity of bioenergy plants until 2021 had reached 1,921 megawatts, far from the 5.5-gigawatt target planned to be achieved in 2025.
"The achievement of PLTBg is still quite low, at 120 megawatts. This can continue to be optimized to fulfill the target of achieving the energy mix. During the period from 2022 to 2024, some 50 megawatts of PLTBg are expected to be realized," Wibowo noted in a statement here, Wednesday.
Indonesia is the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world, as it has a large plantation area and a massive palm oil mill. In 2018, the area of palm oil in Indonesia reached at least 12.8 million hectares, and more than 850 palm oil mills were mostly concentrated in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Not only produced as food ingredients, cosmetics, and household cleaning supplies, palm oil has also become one of the mainstays in the development of new renewable energy in the country.
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All palm oil waste can be used as a carbon-neutral energy source, including biogas, which can be produced through processing palm oil mill effluent (POME) using the anaerobic digester (AD) technology.
A study on the utilization of POME waste in Indonesia has been conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources with the German government's Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Security and Consumer Protection (BMUV) through the Deutsche Gesselschaft für Internationalle Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
The study explained that the progress in the achievement of biogas utilization from POME until 2021 reached 28.39 million cubic meters. This figure represents only 5.9 percent of the 2025 biogas target based on the General Plan of National Energy (RUEN), which is 489.8 million cubic meters.
One of the important points in the National Action Plan for Sustainable Oil Palm Plantations (RAN KSB) 2009 - 2024 is to increase the use of palm oil products as renewable energy in the context of energy security.
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Director of Processing and Marketing of Plantation Products at the Ministry of Agriculture, Dedi Junaedi, remarked that the Ministry of Agriculture had, so far, issued at least 759 certificates for palm oil plantations, whether managed by the state, private sector, or smallholders.
According to Chairman of the Indonesian Biogas Association, Muhammad Abdul Kholiq, the certification is certainly beneficial to improve the economy of palm oil plantations.
Meanwhile, business practitioner of Nusantara Plantation Holding Leonardo Alexander Renatus Pane noted that Perkebunan Nusantara manages 10 companies that will be directed to maximize the utilization of palm oil waste.
In areas with a surplus of electricity supply, POME processing will be directed to co-firing boilers and bio-CNG production.
POME has huge potential to meet the domestic energy needs, both electric and non-electric. Moreover, POME plays an important role in greenhouse gas mitigation, with the potential for emission reductions of up to 42.6 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
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Translator: Sugiharto, Azis Kurmala
Editor: Fardah Assegaf
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