JAKARTA – Indonesia will develop a plant to produce bio-pellets from palm kernel shells in the special economic zone (KEK) Sei Mangkei in North Sumatera province, with a production capacity of 200,000 tons per year.
To realize the biomass project, the state-owned plantation holding company PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) III’s Vice President Director Denaldy Mulino Mauna signed recently in Jakarta a head of agreement (HoA) with PT PTEC Research & Development (PTEC) Director Suwaki Yasufumi. PTEC is an organic chemical research and development company of Japan.
Denaldy Mulino Mauna said that the bio-pellet plant will have a processing capacity of palm kernel shells at one million tons per year or equivalent to the production of bio-pellets at 200,000 tons per year.
He said that as their initial stage of cooperation PTPN VIII, a subsidiary of PTPN III, and the Japanese company PTEC have started the production of bio-pellets to meet the energy need for drying process of tea leaves as a substitution of wood-pellets that have been increasingly expensive.
“For the next step, PTPN III and PTEC will conduct a feasibility study on the development of a bio-pellet plant with the palm shell processing capacity of one million tons or production capacity of bio-pellets at 200,000 tons per year in KEK Sei Mangkei, North Sumatra province, which are expected to meet the local and foreign markets,” Denaldy said in a press release on Tuesday, 27 December 2022.
PTEC has targeted that the development of the bio-pellet plant can be started in 2023 at a landsite of 32 Ha in KEK Sei Mangkei. Denaldy underlined the strong commitment of PTPN to develop the new and renewable energy sources, including the bio-pellets, in Indonesia.
The bio-pellets can partly or entirely replace coal or fossil fuel for heating, drying or production process of industries, or for power generation, with the aim to reduce carbon emissions and reduce the industries’ energy cost.
Generally, any kind of biomass can be used to produce the bio-pellets. The usual biomass used for the bio-pellet production include palm kernel shells, wood chips, sawmills’ wastes, forestry and agricultural residues, such as branches, bark, leaves, rice husks, rice straws, corn stalks, coconut shells, etc. (*)
Source: okezone.com
