Startup Business Based on Energy Plantation

Startup business is a trend today and not a few, especially young people who are very interested in this business pattern. Information technology in the form of the internet has made it easier to run the startup business. Today we can see that with this startup pattern a number of large companies have existed and stood by selling their products and services. Innovative products that can provide accurate solutions to the various problems that make the company exist and continue develop. But it turns out that running and developing a startup business is also not easy and without obstacles. The fact is that up to now the possibility of startups appearing and being able to survive is only 8%, meaning that out of 100 startups, only 8 startups can last until the second year. Even if it is counted until the fifth year, only 2 startups can survive. But the fact above is not an obstacle so that it decreases the enthusiasm to continue pursuing the  startup business. On the contrary, it becomes an encouragement about the need for knowledge and sufficient provision to even improve the condition.

Similar to business in general, a startup business will always be able to survive and develop if it continues to be needed by consumers. There are a number of fundamental commodities that will always continue to be needed including food and energy. Food and energy needs are always directly proportional to the human population. Renewable energy, especially biomass-based, which is also one of the focuses of this blog, has bright prospects in the future. Energy plantations can be the basis for a startup business. Energy plantations beside having great benefits for the environment, they also have economic and social benefits. In addition to the fact that there is currently no energy plantation implementation that has yet to work professionally, it needs acceleration. In the early stages of startup, it can focus on commodities that are easy and needed by the market, such as the scheme below.

Startup Business Based on Energy Plantation Phase I

Energy plantations have a number of outputs that can be commercialized or sold, namely wood for wood pellets, leaves for animal feed and flowers for honey production. A number of outputs or yields will clearly maximize the benefits of the energy plantation. The extent of idle land, critical land and a number of unproductive land that reaches tens of millions of hectares is a challenge for the implementation of the energy plantation. The more land is utilized and the higher the level of profits obtained, of course, the more investors invest in this sector. The meat self-sufficiency program from domestic production is also increasingly helped and can be accelerated by forage from the leaves of the energy plantation. The energy plantations use plants such as leguminoceae (legumes) such as calliandra and gliricidae, with roots that are symbiotic with azetobacter microorganism so that it can bind nitrogen from the atmosphere making the leaves rich in protein to become nutritious feed for livestock.

Startup Business Based on Energy Plantation Phase II

In stage 2 such a scheme above the benefits can be further increased. This is because the company does not only produce raw materials used by other industries but furthermore, that is, produce finished products that are ready for consumption. Even so the length of the chain of production processes indeed makes the responsibility of producers increasingly large and complex. Startup businesses that have experienced or have surpassed phase 1 schemes will usually find it easier to run phase 2. The market for this stage is also mostly for exports because up to now the domestic market is not ready, for example wood pellets for fueling fluidized bed technology combustion. PKS (palm kernel shell) are now widely used for the power plant, and because availability is also limited it will be very possible in the future era of wood pellets from the energy plantation as a replacement.

The market for biomass fuels, especially PKS and wood pellets is very open especially in the export market. Japan and Korea are the biggest consumers of biomass fuels today for the Asian region, for more details about the characteristics of the Japanese and Korean markets can be read here. Whereas Europe with the RED program (Renewable Energy Directive) II in 2030 targets that almost 1/3 of energy consumption derived from renewable energy with biomass fuel gets a portion of 80%. The amount is certainly very large, with the current conditions Europe still needs around 5 million tons of wood pellets even though RED I, which applies until 2020, only targets 20 percent of energy consumption from renewable energy and biomass to get a portion of 80 percent.