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.

'Green' power plants may burn palm oil - The Independent

11/05/2009 (The Independent) - The operators of Britain's first "biofuel" power plants are considering burning palm oil, which is blamed for causing rainforest destruction in south-east Asia.

At least four new power stations are being planned around the UK to burn vegetable oils with the assurance that they will generate less pollution than burning climate-change-causing fossil fuels. Two that would power more than 50,000 homes, at Portland in Dorset and Newport in South Wales, are considering using palm oil.

W4B Energy, which has submitted a planning application to build the £30m Portland plant, says it would use only sustainable supplies certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Vogen Energy, behind the plant at Newport, says production of its palm oil would not harm the environment.

But environmentalists say using any palm oil would be unwise because it would put pressure on supplies, even if the supplies which go into the power stations are officially sustainable. Some green groups are also unsure whether the RSPO system for certifying "sustainable" supplies is sufficiently robust.


Most of the 38 million tonnes of palm oil produced globally is used in food and cosmetics. But the need for biofuels to mix with petrol and as "feedstock" for power stations is putting pressure on demand, which is forecast to grow at 6 to 10 per cent a year.

Conservationists are concerned at the loss of primary forest in Sumatra and Borneo and elsewhere, to make way for plantations. New plantations result in large losses of wildlife and are blamed for imperilling the future of the tree-dwelling orangutan, which could become extinct in the wild in 20 years.

The power plants would help the UK meet its target of generating 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, but the Government says it must "proceed cautiously" to prevent biofuels raising food prices and destroying wildlife in developing countries. New sources of power are also required because new nuclear power stations will not be in operation until after 2020 and many existing fossil fuel power stations are coming to the end of their life.

But Robert Palgrave, a member of the pressure group Biofuelswatch, argued that growing crops for electricity was a less efficient use of resources than using that land for wind turbines: "To produce the amount of palm oil for food, cosmetics and biofuel is an incredible demand and the only way they can get it is through deforestation."

James Turner, a Greenpeace forests campaigner, said: "Using palm oil to fuel a power station could be even more damaging than burning fossil fuels."