PLN: Need 8 mln tons of trash to operate plants
Source: ANTARA News
Date: 25 November 2020
State electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) said it will need at least 8 million tons of waste per year as a replacement for coal to operate its thermal power plants.
The waste will replace 5 percent of coal needs to operate the power plants, PT PLN mega project director Ikhsan Asaad said at a meeting with Commission VII of the House of Representatives (DPR) on Wednesday.
The waste includes wood sawdust, he added. PLN's thermal power plants have a total capacity of 18 thousand megawatts (MW).
The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry is encouraging the use of new and renewable energy by developing the country's biomass potential to substitute its coal needs of 20,925 tons per day.
Through the National Electrical Power Plan 2019-2038, the ministry will encourage a co-firing method at thermal power plants by using biomass as a substitute for coal.
"There are two types of raw materials [that will be used] for the co-firing method. They are trash and waste from forest products in the form of wood. They will be mixed [in a ratio of] as much as 1 percent to 5 percent. If accumulated, their potential will be quite huge," chief of the communication, public information service and cooperation bureau at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Agung Pribadi, said.
The volume of trash used as a raw material for the production of pellets has currently reached 20,925 tons per day. The trash is concentrated at 15 urban trash treatment sites in Jakarta (7,000 tons/day), Bekasi City(1,500 tons/day), Bekasi District (450 tons/day), Batam (760 tons/day), Semarang (950 tons/ per day), Surabaya (1,700 tons/day), Tangerang (1.200 tons/day, and Denpasar and Badung (1,155 tons/day).
"The calorific value of waste treatment will be 2,900 - 3.400 Cal/gr," he said.
