Announcement on The National Palm Oil Small ReNEWable ENERGY Programme(SREP) & Seminar(POSREP Seminar)

The Seminar will be held on March 11, 2010 at Promenade Hotel, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Organized by Malaysian Palm Oil Board.

See details here

The Seminar

Energy supply and degradation of the environment are among the major concerns of the world today. Realizing this, the Government of Malaysia has been continuously reviewing its energy and environmental policies in line with the needs at national and global levels. One of the strategies is the use of renewable energy (RE) in the national energy mix for electricity generation.

Under the 8th Malaysia Plan (2001-2005), the Government has announced the five fuel policy with the addition of RE as the fifth source of energy. In May 2001, the Government launched the Small Renewable Energy Programme (SREP) with the objectives to encourage the private sector to undertake grid-connected small power generation projects using renewable resources.

Under SREP, the RE developers can sell electricity to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) with the maximum power export capacity to the national grid limited to 10 MW. By end of this year, the total electricity generating from RE is expected to contribute 350 MW to the total energy supply.

Biomass and biogas generated from the palm oil industry are identified as potential major fuels for the development of SREP in the country besides solar, mini hydro and wind. With the issues on the sustainability and environment aspects of palm oil production especially on methane emission
from palm oil mill effluent (POME), the industry should play its role to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by using palm based RE to generate green energy either for local use or to be injected to the national grid.

Though the progress of SREP projects compared to off-grid RE projects in the palm oil industry is relatively slow, there is promising development recently with three palm biomass based power plant and one biogas based power plant being connected to the national grid under SREP.

Lack of experience, unattractive Renewable Power Purchase Agreements (REPPA) and incentives as well as financing issues are among the barriers that hindered its development. Therefore, this seminar is specifically organized to disseminate latest development of SREP in the palm oil industry and address all these barriers. This will increase awareness of the importance of SREP development to the industry and the role to be played to establish the palm oil industry as a major player in RE development in Malaysia.

Objectives

• To highlight and disseminate latest development and status of SREP and the national policies on renewable energy.

• To promote and encourage the palm oil industry to actively participate in the SREP projects as well as to adopt the technologies for green energy generation.

• To discuss and brainstorm the role of the palm oil industry towards the development of SREP and RE in the country.

• To highlight the success story of the SREP development in the palm oil industry.

• To minimize and mitigate the GHG emission from the palm oil industry via the implementation of SREP projects.

• To deliberate on policies, incentives, action plans and implementation of policies and action plans.

• To provide a forum for meaningful interaction and exchange of ideas and experiences amongst the relevant agencies and participants for the benefit and continued sustainability of the palm oil industry.