Palm Oil Mill Business Development: Electricity from Biogas for the EFB Pellets Production

Palm oil mills or CPO mills are generally no longer interested in developing businesses or making businesses anymore, because the demand to produce sustainable CPO products has become a challenge. Palm oil mills in general want to do business development, especially related to its main business such as productivity of palm oil fruit (plantation division) and environmental aspects that are part of sustainable CPO production (mill division). A business unit that can integrate the two divisions in the palm oil business is what is needed for palm oil companies. As a business, of course, in addition to the two aspects above, it also has a profit oriented. Business characteristics that improve the quality of the environment and produce products that are oriented towards environmental sustainability are the characteristics of business in the bioeconomy era.

In the palm oil mill or CPO production, besides producing the main product in the form of CPO, a number of wastes are also produced, such as solid waste and liquid waste. Liquid waste in the form of POME (Palm Oil Mill Effluent) can be further processed into biogas and then the biogas is converted into electricity with a gas engine. Why with a gas engine and not with a steam turbine for electricity conversion? That is because the gas engine is more practical and easier compared to steam turbine. The second consideration is the production of electricity from biogas is a business development that utilizes palm oil mill effluents and not CPO production lines that require steam in the production process series. The electricity generated can then be used for the production of EFB (empty fruit bunch) pellets . While the residue from the biogas unit is then used for fertilizer in palm oil plantations, the term commonly used is land application.

Empty fruit bunches or EFB are generally not utilized and there are quite a lot of them. Increasing its added value by processing it into EFB pellets is an environmental and business solution for empty fruit bunches or EFB waste. EFB pellets are a group of biomass pellets especially agro waste pellets or agricultural waste pellets, which in terms of characteristics there is little difference with wood pellets. Along with the increasing need for renewable energy, especially biomass fuels and more specifically wood pellets, because the number of wood pellets currently produced is relatively limited because it only relies on sawdust and wood wastes, an increase in production can be done with agricultural waste, especially EFB pellets. The potential of empty fruit bunches for EFB pellet production is also huge, for more details, please read here.

The production of EFB pellets with electricity from the biogas unit should be managed separately from the palm oil mill or CPO mill. This will make the CPO mill run optimally as well as EFB pellet production. When the palm oil mill wastes can be treated, the palm oil company will get a positive image on the environmental aspect (green company). Positive image as a result of real or concrete waste processing so that it is a zero waste production will also increase the selling power of CPO products as the main product. Palm oil companies in general are always trying to improve environmental sustainability as an indicator of the performance of the palm oil companies concerned so that the production of EFB pellets with operations using electricity from POME biogas is a surefire solution. 

Urgency of the Biogas Unit in the Palm Oil Mills

In palm oil mills with a big vision, business development is important and always receives special attention. Palm oil mills which generally only produce CPO (crude palm oil) and only a few produce PKO (palm kernel oil). Biomass wastes generated such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), fiber and palm kernel shells (PKS) have great potential to be developed into businesses. In addition, the kernel (palm kernel) which has only been sold to other parties can actually be processed by ownself into a PKO. Even CPO itself can also be developed into various derivative products such as cooking oil, stearin, olein and various other oleochemical products. To process the above material, will always need energy and the availability of energy especially those which become a major obstacle to various business developments in the palm oil mill.

Biogas from POME or palm oil mill effluent is a potential energy source that can be created to support a number of business developments based on the palm oil mill. Liquid waste in the form of POME is generally not utilized and is still a problem for most palm oil mills today. By processing it into biogas, it can then be converted to heat and electricity so that it can be utilized for business development that mentioned above. Under certain conditions the biogas produced can even be upgraded to CBG (Compressed Biomethane Gas) with the use as a substitute for fuel in trucks used in the palm oil industry.

There are two types of biogas reactors being developed at this time, namely by maing then covering the pool with a special rubber material (covered lagoon) and a continous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). Although it requires a wider area, the type of covered lagoon is more widely used because in addition to being simpler it can also accommodate more biogas volume. A palm oil mill using centrifugal oil separator will produce a lot of sludge which increases the COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) thereby increasing the amount of biogas produced. While palm oil mills use decanters, the sludge will be separated so that the COD is low and so is the biogas product produced.

Biogas Water Absorber

The use of biogas to convert to thermal energy (in external combustion engines such as furnaces and boilers) is simpler than the conversion to electrical energy with a gas engine (typical of internal combustion engine). When biogas is converted into heat, the gas purification process is not even carried out and directly burned in the gas burner, so existing boiler of the palm oil can be used. But when it converted into electricity with a gas engine , the biogas purification process becomes important, because the quality of the gas is very influential on the performance and durability of the gas engine and automatically the electricity product produced. Biogas with a lot of H2S content will be corrosive so as to damage the gas engine unit and biogas with high CO2 content will reduce the calorific value so that the gas engine performance will decrease.