Sustainable electricity generation from oil palm biomass wastes in Malaysia: An industry survey

Published Date
Energy
1 April 2014, Vol.67:496–505, doi:10.1016/j.energy.2014.01.067

Author 

• Mohd Shaharin Umar ^,,
• Philip Jennings
• Tania Urmee

• School of Engineering and Information Technology, Murdoch University, South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia 6150, Australia

Received 13 September 2013. Revised 15 January 2014. Accepted 18 January 2014. Available online 21 February 2014. 

Highlights

• •
  Establishing a fuel collection hub.
• •
  Centralising a technology hub facility.
• •
  Smart-partnership collaboration for building a large scale biomass plant.
• •
  Adopting decentralised generation.

Abstract

The biomass wastes from the palm oil industry offer great potential for large-scale power generation in Malaysia. It has been estimated that 85.5% of available biomass in the country comes from oil palm agriculture. The introduction of the FiT (Feed-in Tariff) regime in 2011, which superseded the underperforming SREP (Small Renewable Energy Power) scheme, is expected to catalyse and accelerate the development of the renewable energy industry, including biomass technology. Despite a major overhaul of the market structure under the new scheme, the sustainability of the grid-connected oil palm biomass renewable energy industry downstream components remains questionable. Hence, this paper aims to investigate and analyse the market response to six sustainability-related topics. The research methods include electronic and conventional postal modes to disseminate questionnaires to all of the palm oil producers. The returned questionnaires were then analysed with a statistical tool and inferences were drawn to identify the gaps in the existing policy system. The survey identified several key factors for the government's consideration.

Keywords

Renewable energy

Oil palm biomass

Feed-in tariff

Sustainability

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Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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