COP 27 Egypt: PLN shares its biomass co-firing implementation in coal power plants to reduce carbon emission while driving new opportunities for the local economy

Sharm El Sheikh (ANTARA) - One of PLN's efforts to accelerate decarbonization is to decrease the usage of fossil energy. In the power sector, PT PLN (Persero) will begin to gradually early retire Coal Fired Power Plant (CFPP). Meanwhile, to reduce emissions from existing operational CFPPs, PLN has implemented biomass co-firing technology.

PLN Director of Transmission and System Planning, Evy Haryadi, has explained that PLN is implementing co-firing technology at 33 CFPPs. Whereas, for the next two or three years, PLN will add more co-firing technology at 52 CFPPs.

Evy said, the co-firing technology conducted by PLN is not solely to reduce emission. Biomass co-firing technology is inviting the community to be actively involved by planting biomass, or even by managing their regional household waste to be processed and converted into pellets for co-firing at CFPP - hence creating new value creation opportunity for the local community.

“Up until now PLN has produced 653 GWh of clean energy from biomass co-firing, which is equal to reducing 656 thousand tones CO2 emission,” said Evy on Climate Change Summit (COP 27) at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Sunday (6/11).

By 2025, PLN aims to utilize 10 million tones biomass annually to implement co-firing technology at CFPPs. This amount is equal to 12 percent biomass composition as feedstock in the CFPPs. Hopefully, with this step PLN can reduce carbon emission for 11 million tones CO2 per year.

The challenge ahead, Evy said, is to secure adequate biomass supply for co-firing implementation. To secure the supply, PLN has cooperation agreement with 3 SOEs, namely PT Perhutani, PT Perkebunan Nusantara and PT Sang Hyang Seri.

“We also work with local government to process municipal waste into solid recovered fuel or SRF, which can be used as biomass material for co-firing,” Evy explained.

The Government also expressed support for PLN’s co-firing program. Deputy Management Environment and Forestry Coordinating Ministry for Maritime & Investment Affairs, Nani Hendarti, explained that the action PLN has taken is aligned with the goals of Government of Indonesia in reducing carbon emission.

Furthermore, Nani explained that in order to develop this technology, Government of Indonesia is supporting the development of energy forest to utilize idle area for energy plantation. The Government also supports local stakeholders to manage municipal waste to be converted to biomass feedstock for PLN co-firing.