Palm | Kelapa Sawit

This newsreport was published in Berita Nasional Malaysia (Bernama) website.

SANDAKAN, 14 Jan 2010-- Large oil palm plantation companies are being encouraged to generate electricity using empty fruit bunches (EFB). This is to overcome the shortage of electricity supply in Sabah.

Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Datuk Seri Peter Chin Fah Kui said the effort is important as the use of EFB can help overcome the shortage of electricity, especially on Sabah's east coast.

He said the oil palm industry in the state was among the biggest and surely the EFB from it can be recycled to generate electricity.

"If large plantation companies use EFB as one of the fuel sources to generate electricity for their factories, it will help in efforts to overcome power shortage problem in the state," he told reporters after visiting the Main Intake Substation at Buli Sim-Sim, Sandakan here today. The substation has 20 sets of mobile power generation sets with the ability to produce 20MW of electricity and has been operational since last year.

According to Chin, if necessary, it will be made mandatory for large plantation companies in the country to build biomass power generation plants to process the EFB at their respective factories.

"I will forward the proposal to the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, as one of the long-term plans to overcome the shortage of electricity in Sabah," he said.

In Sabah, there are five biomass power generation plants processing the EFB and only three sell electricity to the Sabah State Electricity Board (SESB) under the Renewable Energy Power Production Agreement (REPPA). The three plants are Kina Biopower Sdn Bhd and Seguntor Bioenergy Sdn Bhd, both operating here and the other being, TSH Bioenergy Sdn Bhd in Tawau.