SYNOPSIS

Palm oil mills in Malaysia or elsewhere have been operating for nearly one century now using renewable energy as the energy source for fueling the boilers. During its infancy stage the huge volume of biomass produced by the palm oil mills were seen to be an obstacle for the mill operation as there was an urgent necessity to evacuate them continuously.  One of the solutions was to have inefficient boilers and steam turbines to enable the mission of efficient disposal of steam!
Today, the situation has changed and mills are displaying keen interest to operate the power plants efficiently.  But unfortunately, the pattern of power plant operation was and still is based on the requirements of a situation that was prevalent a century ago. The present boilers still generate saturated steam at 21to 30 bar with slight superheat and steam turbine still operate with a single Curtis wheel. A paradigm shift is what is desired. The mills have to shift the focus on the power plant rather than the mill.  A60 ton per hour palm oil mill it can easily generate 6MW instead of 1.5 MW, if fundamental thermodynamic principles are applied. The mill owners and engineers do not seem to recognize that increased power output from the same palm oil mill can be easily done by raising the steam pressure to say 65 bar with high superheat and a condensing turbine. The surplus power can give birth to a number of industries in its vicinity without spending any money for the grid connection. So there is a power purchaser next door. The additional cost for the HP boiler &turbines should be viewed as an investment for a power station for which the palm oil mill will only serve as the fuel supplier. The focus should shift from palm oil mill to RE power plant. If the CPO price drops the power supply business will make both sustainable. This will also serve as an EXIT STATEGY.

BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. N. Ravi Menon P.Eng has more than 49 years of experience in Lembaga Letrik Negara (Power Station), Kumpulan Guthrie (Processing) and Malaysian Palm Oil Board (Senior Research fellow). He was also seconded to Pusat Tenaga Malaysia by MPOB to work for UNDP-GEF as the RE project manager. He also worked as Energy Expert in PTM for CDM projects. In addition he is also MPOB’s COP auditor and lecturer for MPOB Mill Engineer’s Diploma course. Holds a Master’s Degree in Wet steam and Power plants (University of Liverpool) as well as 1st grade Steam Engineer’s Competency certificate. He is currently continuing in MPOB as Senior Research fellow