Chapter 28
Techno-Economic Assessment on Waste
from Palm Oil Mill to Electricity
in Malaysia
Hashizume Michino and Tokimatsu Koji
Abstract In the production process of palm oil, three types of biomass; Empty Fruit
Bunch (EFB), Kernel Shell (KS) and Mesocarp Fiber (MF) are produced as wastes.
In real society, many palm oil mills utilize only MF as fuel for internal electricity
generation and other biomass are just disposed. We focus on these three kinds of
biomass and conduct an economic assessment on utilizing all combined cases of the
three biomass not only for internal use of generated electricity but also for selling
local area via the grid. We evaluate seven cases; namely, case 1 (utilizing all biomass),
case 2 (EFB and MF), case 3 (EFB and KS), case 4 (MF and KS), case 5 (only EFB),
case 6 (only MF, generally used currently), case 7 (only KS). Unutilized biomass
is assumed transferred to a nearest palm oil mill in simplicity. We estimated costs
consisted from direct construction of generating electricity from biomass, operating,
maintenance and transportation for the unutilized biomass. We calculated sales for
generated electricity by assuming market price and feed-in tariff (FIT). In addition
to the power sales, ash from the boiler is also assumed to be sellable as a fertilizer
from expecting market price and active ingredient contents in the ash. Following
results are clarified; (1) the transportation cost shared largest among all the cases (2)
power is the largest among the three sales components (3) the case 1 utilizing all
the biomass wastes shows generally largest profit while the case 6 commonly used
recently indicates least among the cases.
Keywords Palm oil biomass · Waste to energy · Economic assessment
28.1 Introduction
In south east Asia, their economics are rapidly developing now. Along these rapid
economic development, energy demands are also rapidly increasing. However, there
H. Michino (B) · T. Koji
School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama City, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail: hashizume.m.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
T. Koji
e-mail: tokimatsu.k.ac@m.titech.ac.jp
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability II, Sustainable Production, Life
Cycle Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6775-9_28
429
Techno-Economic Assessment on Waste
from Palm Oil Mill to Electricity
in Malaysia
Hashizume Michino and Tokimatsu Koji
Abstract In the production process of palm oil, three types of biomass; Empty Fruit
Bunch (EFB), Kernel Shell (KS) and Mesocarp Fiber (MF) are produced as wastes.
In real society, many palm oil mills utilize only MF as fuel for internal electricity
generation and other biomass are just disposed. We focus on these three kinds of
biomass and conduct an economic assessment on utilizing all combined cases of the
three biomass not only for internal use of generated electricity but also for selling
local area via the grid. We evaluate seven cases; namely, case 1 (utilizing all biomass),
case 2 (EFB and MF), case 3 (EFB and KS), case 4 (MF and KS), case 5 (only EFB),
case 6 (only MF, generally used currently), case 7 (only KS). Unutilized biomass
is assumed transferred to a nearest palm oil mill in simplicity. We estimated costs
consisted from direct construction of generating electricity from biomass, operating,
maintenance and transportation for the unutilized biomass. We calculated sales for
generated electricity by assuming market price and feed-in tariff (FIT). In addition
to the power sales, ash from the boiler is also assumed to be sellable as a fertilizer
from expecting market price and active ingredient contents in the ash. Following
results are clarified; (1) the transportation cost shared largest among all the cases (2)
power is the largest among the three sales components (3) the case 1 utilizing all
the biomass wastes shows generally largest profit while the case 6 commonly used
recently indicates least among the cases.
Keywords Palm oil biomass · Waste to energy · Economic assessment
28.1 Introduction
In south east Asia, their economics are rapidly developing now. Along these rapid
economic development, energy demands are also rapidly increasing. However, there
H. Michino (B) · T. Koji
School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama City, Tokyo, Japan
e-mail: hashizume.m.aa@m.titech.ac.jp
T. Koji
e-mail: tokimatsu.k.ac@m.titech.ac.jp
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
Y. Kishita et al. (eds.), EcoDesign and Sustainability II, Sustainable Production, Life
Cycle Engineering and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6775-9_28
429