Wood Pellet Stove for the Community

Wood-fired stoves are still commonly found in various regions in Indonesia. In addition to being inefficient, the stove also produces smoke pollution which pollutes the environment and is detrimental to health. Smoke pollution from wood-fired stoves is reported as the cause of death for millions of people in the world each year. In addition, many of the firewood used comes from forest wood which causes deforestation. While the further impact of deforestation is the occurrence of natural disasters such as floods and landslides.

Cooking is one of the important human activities to get food, so it is also important to be able to do well. Included as part of that effort is maintaining fuel sustainability, affordable fuel prices, health and environmental aspects. Currently, most of the fuel for cooking in Indonesia is LPG, but in reality, nearly 80% of the LPG used comes from imports or a value of around 60 trillion rupiah. Pertamina, as the sole producer of LPG in Indonesia, currently supplies tend to decrease. However, the demand for LPG continues to increase. LPG demand in 2011 was recorded at 4.35 million tonnes. This need continues to increase every year until it has doubled to 8.55 million tons in 2021. This condition is certainly not good, because it creates dependence on imports, even though in Indonesia there are a number of resources that can be used to overcome this.

Various things based on Indonesia's potential to overcome this include adding new oil refineries so that LPG production can be boosted, coal gasification to produce DME (Dimethyl Ether) whose characteristics are similar to LPG, or using natural gas with gas pipelines. From an energy independence standpoint, this can be done, especially since the raw materials are sufficiently available, but from a bioeconomic and decarbonization point of view (replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy), which is also increasing, this is not appropriate. Renewable energy should be as much as possible as a solution. Wood pellets are fuel or renewable energy from biomass which is ideal for substituting LPG. As a tropical country, Indonesia is rich in biomass because the sun shines all year round, whereas in sub-tropical countries when it's winter the plants stop growing. It can even be said that the biggest producers of biomass are tropical areas or areas where the equator passes, so as a gift from Allah SWT we must be grateful for it.

An efficient and low emission wood pellet stove is the best solution. Why not just a biomass stove? Why does biomass waste, especially wood waste, need to be processed into wood pellets first? By making wood pellets, in addition to uniform shape and size, dry, high density, it is also easy to store and use. Even in the rainy season it can be difficult to find dry firewood in a number of areas, on the other hand wood pellets can be very practical to use. So with standard products according to the specifications mentioned above, wood pellets will be a superior and renewable solid fuel, so that wood pellet stoves will work optimally. Meanwhile, if the fuel is from any biomass with various specifications, then the performance of the stove will not be optimal.

Raw materials for the production of wood pellets can use wood wastes from sawmills, wood processing industries and forest wastes. Many of these wastes have not been utilized and even polluted the environment to become useful and have economic value. The production capacity of the wood pellet factory also needs to be determined so that it meets the needs of its use. To meet the needs of the community at the village or sub-district level, a wood pellet factory can be built with a capacity of 500-1000 tons/month.

Regarding reducing CO2 in the atmosphere in line with decarbonization and bio-economy, a number of companies are currently also carrying out carbon projects, namely by making conservation forests as a medium for absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere (carbon sinks) by receiving compensation in the form of carbon credits. The conservation forest is maintained in such a way that the carbon project is a success. The occurrence of deforestation in conservation forest areas is something that must be avoided. To avoid this, the wood pellet stove program can be a solution. Communities around the conservation forest who use wood pellets for their cooking stoves make firewood no longer used and deforestation does not occur.

Biochar for Palm Oil Nurseries

There are about 250 producers of palm oil seedlings in Indonesia, and with an area of the palm oil plantation reaching around 15 million hectares, these seedling producers are actually not many either. More specifically, Sumatra island has the largest area of palm oil plantations in Indonesia, making it the main economic activity in the area, because 70 percent of palm oil land in Indonesia is in Sumatra. With a cropping pattern, for example, 125 trees per hectare, 125,000 trees are needed for every 1,000 hectares or 1 million hectares for 125 million trees, while 15 million hectares means more than 1.8 trillion palm oil trees with current crude palm oil (CPO) production reaching more than 40 million tons per year. A very large number, of course. But not only the quantity factor, the seed quality factor is prioritized so that it has optimal productivity. Of course, the need for seeds does not necessarily mean millions or trillions of trees at the same time, depending on needs such as new plantings from new plantations (extensification) - which is currently being carried out in Indonesia or rejuvenation of palm oil plantations (replanting) which is carried out periodically.

One of the good palm oil seeds is determined by the quality of the growing media. The growing medium for palm oil seedlings generally consists of topsoil mixed with sand or organic matter to obtain a fertile medium. Compost or manure is often used to improve soil fertility by supplying nutrients to plants. With a tropical climate with high rainfall, nutrients can be easily washed away, besides that, low soil pH is also a separate obstacle for the growth of these seeds. By using biochar, nutrients or plant nutrients become more available, humidity and microbial activity will increase. This makes the quality of the planting medium high quality, so that the resulting palm oil seed products in the form of roots, plant height, number of leaves and plant weight are the parameters observed with the use of biochar which are also getting better.

Compared to using cocopeat, biochar has a number of advantages. Both cocopeat and biochar have uses in agriculture, but there are a number of differences between the two. Cocopeat has uses mainly as a planting medium because of its water holding capacity, while biochar besides having the ability to hold water like cocopeat also raises soil pH, holds or makes nutrients more available (nutrient retention), and also becomes a soil microbial colony so that Organic materials become quickly decomposed and absorbed by plants. Cocopeat will also decompose in a short time like compost, while biochar can survive and not decompose for hundreds of years. Under these conditions, biochar is also used to store CO2 (carbon sequestration) and obtain carbon credits with the carbon sink mechanism.

The palm oil nursery is the starting point that most determines the further growth of the palm oil in the field. The success of growing palm oil plants in the field is largely determined by the quality of the seeds planted. Seedlings that grow well in nurseries have high adaptability in the field. In practice, it has been proven by a number of studies that the use of biochar has a positive effect on palm seed products. The use of biochar in the range of 40% has become the best composition for the planting medium for the palm oil seeds. This should encourage producers of palm oil seeds to use biochar. If there is a need for biochar in large quantities for this purpose, please contact us. We can also provide technical specification data (COA) and also the biochar samples.

Palm Oil Mill Redesign for IVO Production: Using Pyrolysis, Gasification or Biogas?

The production of biodiesel / green diesel using raw material of RBD PO is too good (overspec) and too expensive, so it needs to be replaced with a cheaper raw material, namely IVO (industrial vegetable oil). For this purpose, it is necessary to redesign the palm oil mill so that a number of FFB extraction production into CPO carried out at the palm oil mill need to modify the process flow. The sterilization process can be eliminated so that there is no need for water for steam production as well as boilers and steam turbines for electricity production. Water treatment units may also be no longer needed or may still be needed but for different processes.

Another important thing is the supply of energy, especially electricity, for this new type of palm oil mill. This is because most of the equipments used in the palm oil mill are mechanical equipments that work by consuming electricity. As the mill that has a lot of biomass waste, it's certainly not a difficult thing to do, even so far, palm oil mills produce their own electricity by burning palm mesocarp fiber and palm kernel shell in the boiler. But in a new type of palm oil mill with a different configuration, the boiler may not be needed or it is still needed but there are differences from before. Basically, of course, how to achieve the highest level of efficiency with the new process.

Another factor is how the new production process also provides greater benefits for the palm oil industry, for example biochar products are also produced. The biochar product will later be used in palm oil plantations to improve soil fertility and also as a carbon sink and absorb N2O gas, which is a greenhouse gas. Carbon credits from the application of biochar as a carbon sink will also provide additional income for the palm oil industry, which is also not a small amount. Currently, many palm oil plantations are located on acid soils or with low pH, which results in low productivity of palm oil yield, so it needs to be increased. Also, in the operation of palm oil plantations, the cost of fertilizer is the highest cost component, and for this reason, biochar is the solution to this problem. With the high productivity of FFB with this treatment, the clearing of palm oil land is no longer needed, so that the focus on palm oil plantations which causes deforestation is also reduced, more info read here.

For electricity production, apart from burning palm nesocarp fiber and palm kernel shell in the boiler, then the resulting steam drives a steam turbine, another way is pyrolysis and gasification of biomass. With pyrolysis (slow pyrolysis) more biochar production or as the main product. Whereas with gasification the product of biochar is less with more main gas product. Biogas from liquid waste (POME) is another energy source that can be used. Basically it depends on the goals and needs, how much electricity is needed, how much biochar is needed and so on. But with the area of palm oil plantations reaching tens of thousands of hectares, the need for biochar will be very large, so pyrolysis will be more suitable to be applied. And if the demand for electricity is large enough, then electricity from biogas can also be used as an addition to electricity from pyrolysis. 

Even with this pyrolysis, other useful products for palm oil plantations will also be produced, such as liquid smoke. This liquid smoke can be used as a biopesticide whose application can use agricultural drones at speeds of 16 hectares/hour or more. Biooil products from pyrolysis can also be used for direct fuel using a burner or further refined to become vehicle fuel. Burning gas or liquid fuels will give cleaner emissions to palm oil mills compared to burning solid fuel that has been done so far.

Digestate from biogas can be used together with biochar so that it can provide maximum results in palm oil plantations. With a porous biochar structure, digestate plus biochar will become a slow release organic fertilizer so that fertilizer use will be more efficient. Apart from that, with the large amount of potential for biomass waste in the palm oil industry, it also allows for a number of business developments, especially if there is an adequate supply of energy. An example is the production of activated carbon from palm kernel shells (PKS) or the processing of kernels into kernel oil (crude palm kernel oil). By optimizing all the potential, especially biomass waste so that it can provide economic and environmental benefits, the palm oil industry will be even more attractive.

Wood Pellet Production to Penetrate the European Market

The condition of the Russian-Ukrainian war that occurred had an impact on the wood pellet industry, namely the shortage of supply in England and other European countries. They have made efforts to increase supply to secure the availability of these wood pellets. The shortage of wood pellets both for industrial and household use (room heating / pellet heating). Wood pellet production from Russia cannot be accepted by the European market even though the amount is large (Russia exported more than 870,000 tons to Denmark alone last year) and this condition is expected to occur for at least the next 12 months. The supply shortage of wood pellets is estimated at 3.4 million tons, which is production from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has led to high wood pellet prices for various reasons, mainly due to the scarcity of wood pellets and other fuels coming to Europe and high electricity prices.

The need for wood pellets also continues to increase along with the decarbonization program (substitution of fossil fuels for renewable energy). According to Hawkins Wright's data, from 2020-'21, demand for wood pellets for the global industry grew by 18.4%, with production only growing 8.4%. Especially now with the disappearance of Russia, the price of wood pellets is higher, which reaches $ 300 per ton, but even at high prices, the supply of wood pellets is still constrained. The high price of fossil fuels has also created an increase in demand for wood pellets, especially households in Europe who have switched to wood pellets for space heating and it is estimated that the increase in demand will reach 2.5 million tons in 2022, according to the Austrian proPellets report. In Austria—and most of their representatives across Europe—wood pellet prices broke records by increasing more than 53% over the previous year with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Even the June 2022 survey completed by Austrian proPellets resulted in an average price of wood pellets rising 66% compared to the previous year. However, despite the increase, wood pellets still offer a price advantage of 82.7% compared to heating oil and 18.3% compared to natural gas. Meanwhile, packaged wood pellets (bagged pellets) increased 52.8% compared to last year.

ProPellets Austria also reported that to respond to the demand for wood pellets, especially to ensure long-term needs, the Austrian wood pellet industry built 11 new wood pellet factories by accelerating the utilization of wood residue. The international energy market is in a state of upheaval, not least because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and this also affects the wood pellet market globally, especially in Europe. Whereas the UK has also faced a shortage of 200,000 tonnes of wood pellets in the domestic/household heating market and that new supply chain pathways are being explored, importing larger volumes is one solution. With a very tight market, supply chain bottlenecks, inflation and the ripple effects of ongoing wars, strategy, creativity and supply chain flexibility will be required from wood pellet stakeholders. As for whether global wood pellet supply is expected to be closer to meeting demand, that likely won't be in the near future, according to Matthews, biomass consultant from Hawkins Wright. . Economic strength will have an effect over time — high prices are the driving force of investment in a new wood pellet plant. The wood pellet industry is currently investing hundreds of millions of Euros so that supply is guaranteed in the long term, but they also need support from political decision makers.

Indonesia, with its vast territory and tropical climate, has the potential to develop large capacity wood pellet production, including the use of energy plantations. Indonesia's wood pellet production, which is currently still small or estimated at only 200 thousand tons per year, needs to be boosted so that it responds to European needs. Even though so far Asia, Japan and Korea are the target markets for wood pellets, recent developments in European conditions have also become a new impetus. The high price of wood pellets in Europe due to the Russia-Ukraine war made suppliers in North America (United States and Canada) also start supplying Europe. In fact, this opportunity was also seized by a number of suppliers from Asia. Vietnam is the second largest exporting country in the world for wood pellets. The volume and value of wood pellet exports has continued to increase since October 2021 and export prices have soared to an average of nearly US$150 per tonne, up more than 27% compared to the average price recorded last year. The sharp rise in export volumes and prices can be attributed to the sudden increase in demand from the European Union. With this extraordinary production capacity, Vietnam's wood pellet industry is starting to face a number of challenges, namely limited raw materials and more stringent requirements demanded by importers such as sustainability certification. This condition should be seen as an opportunity for the wood pellet industry in Indonesia.