Malaysia Energy Resources and Contribution

In today newspaper 1/April/2017, Malaysia TNB makes an announcement about the energy contribution in our country. Before we go into the energy contribution result, let me say something about my understanding about energy resources.

There are many type of energy resources in the world and I don’t deny fossil fuel is the most popular resources. We have been working on new energy resources since several years back, and we are seeing renewable energy is getting more acceptance by the market.

Renewable Energy

Many engineering has been working very hard to introduce more renewable energy in power generation, this include:

Solar Power.
Wind Power

No matter how we introduce new new renewable energy resources, there are always gap in between.

Why Fossil Fuel

Many countries have been using fossil fuel since many years back, there are a few reason why fossil fule is popular:

Has been introduced in the market for many years ago.
Huge reserve including non-harvest portion.
High heating capacity.
Lower price per unit energy (kJ).

Even though fossil fuel is popular however it bring the adverse effect for environment. Burningi fossil fuel cause more particulate or airborne particle discharge to the environment.

Fossil Fuel or Other New Energy Resources

China has been using extensive coal fuel especially at the northern part of the country during the winter time. The country has been experiencing high PMI2.5 count since then. Due to the significant increase of PMI 2.5 count, China government has no choice but to come out an administrative regulation to discard coal fuel for certain area. Similar regulation also been garzetted in Korea and Japan showing determination working against air pollution.

Now Malaysia also increase fossil fuel consumption proportion in the country. From latest report published in TNB, the Malaysia Energy Department, it shows coal fuel contribute 51% of energy produce whereby natural gas drop from 68% to 41%.

Malaysia is having many renewable energy resources in the country but from the data published, it shows the country has very low contribution from renewable energy. What is the reason why the country still strongly rely on fossil and natural gas. There are some power plant in Malaysia whi generate power from renewable energy, such as Maju Intan who generate energy from EFB.

I am not sure what is the rational behind Malaysia TNB has increase the consumption of fossil fuel, but I believe one thing for sure is that fossil fuel is cheaper in term of per unit energy (kJ). Malaysia still considering a beautiful country with low air pollution, but the scenario may change about Malaysia Air Pollution.

Let keep an eye on Malaysia PMI 2.5 data especially those area surrounding power plant burning fossil fuel.

February 22, 2017March 4, 2021

Growth of EFB Pellet Industry

DST has been involving in pellet manufacturing since several years ago. Especially while we started our business in EFB pellet, we have to spend substantial effort in introducing the EFB pellet to the biomass industry.

After so many years, we are seeing people aware of EFB pellet and know how to differentiate them from the wood pellet. Moreover, we are seeing lengthy following comments leave in our post, especially we are seeing so many traders, manufacturers, or even pellet machine manufacturers leave their contact here.

Now is the beginning of year 2017, I would like to put up the top 10 companies prioritize by Google and Baidu after we perform the search for keyword “ EFB Pellet”.

Companies Involve in EFB Pellet

From the Google search engine, the top 3 results are from Malaysia EFB Pellet Manufacturer, which includes DST which having the website www.biofuelresource.com. The other 5 companies are pellet machine manufacturers from China.

From the Baidu search engine, companies register in Alibaba are getting a good ranking. If we focus on a company with own website, 9/10 companies are pellet machine manufacturer from China. Biofuel Resource is the only pellet manufacturer from Malaysia that happens to appears from the Baidu search.

Both Google and Baidu search result has revealed that there are many China pellet machine manufacturers in the market. They are not only having good technology in producing quality pellet machines but also having good position in search engine.

EFB Pelleting Process

So many pellet machine manufacturers had to put their resources into studying how to manufacture quality EFB pellets. From their study, we believe they should be able to see the differences between wood pellet and EFB Pellet.

Empty fruit bunch (EFB) is the raw material of EFB pellet but it has much to involve if want to produce pellet. After so many years working with the EFB pellet manufacturer, the pellet machine manufacturer has better knowledge of the EFB pelleting process. With this knowledge, we are seeing significant improvement on the pelleting machine.

As compare to the pelleting machine several years ago, most of the current pelleting machine builds with the latest technology and improve on the certain deficiency. The EFB pellet produce from the latest pelleting machine should achieve better product quality.

Potential of EFB Pellet

Even though EFB pellet becomes more acceptable in biomass industry however there are still a huge marketing gap if compare with wood pellet. Entire biomass industry bias to wood pellet more than EFB pellet.

Even though Malaysia has substantial amount of shredded EFB, however only a small fraction is used to produce EFB pellet. Most of the shredded EFB is used for biomass in raw form.

Since we are seeing more advanced EFB pellet machines available in the market, hence we expect more people could participate in manufacturing EFB pellet In Malaysia or Indonesia. With everybody’s contribution, we believe EFB pellet could have better acceptance in the biomass market.

February 9, 2017

Bale form Palm Fibre

Palm fibre has many applications, one of the highly consumed sector is becoming the raw material for mattress. Palm fibre mainly used for biomass purpose now we have explored the market for household application.

How to Retrieve Palm Fibre

After the removing the oil palm fruit, it left over with the empty fruit bunch (EFB). The EFB comes in wet form which is the nature of the palm oil process. The EFB fibre will go through a shredded EFB process for further squeezing out the water and remaining oil content. The shredded EFB will send for drying and separating the the long fibre.

Only the Long Palm fibre is suitable for mattress application. Separating the long fibre and short fibre are very importance process as this going to affect the mattress quality.

Long Palm Fibre before Bale

The long fibre comes in loose form or in fluffy condition. It is very bulky and not effective in shipping process. Compress the long palm fibre into bale form is a mandatory process as this going to help more effective in shipping.

Every company has their own individual bale form dimension. Currently we are adopting the 1.2*0.6*0.8m. Base on our experience, the bale dimension is selected in order to maximize the storage ability in the container.

Once the bale arrived in user premise, the mattress user will unload the bale form long fibre and re-arrange the palm fibre to suit the mattress dimension.

Shipping of Bale form Palm Fibre

Since the palm fibre is mainly for export purpose, the bale form palm fibre is shipped in 40ft container. Every 40ft container will load with 40 bale palm fibre with the total weight 17MT. Loading and unloading the palm fibre in the container is a skill job. We have work from all aspect in order to maximize the loading capacity.

Apply palm fibre in mattress application has becomes a remarkable innovation, currently most of the bale of palm fibre is exported to China. DST is one of the exporter for palm fibre in Malaysia, we never stop our effort to persuade this commodity in other country besides China.

Feel free contact DST about our bale form palm fibre, and we are looking forward to work with you in this field.

June 3, 2016

Oil Palm Fibre Products and Biomass Commodities

Through-out our discussion with many readers, we come across several oil palm by products which causing ambiguity to some reader. Over here, we would like to differentiate below few commodities so that we could be clearer what the commodity we need.

By-product of Palm Oil Process

EFB. EFB stands for Empty Fruit Bunch. This refers to the raw bunch with no process. The EFB from the oil palm mill always comes in wet form. It also consists of small percent of oil which could be extracted further. The fibre in EFB is very long.
Shredded EFB. The wet form EFB will send for press and shredded process, the product named as shredded EFB. The shredded EFB still under wet form but the access water content has been squeezed out! The oil content also being squeezed during this process. After the shredded process, the core of the EFB will tear into shorter form, at this moment, the fibre extract from shredded EFB with the range 100-200mm length.
Long Fibre. Long fibre is the fibre extract from shredded EFB. The fibre is more coarse and long than other part of oil palm fibre. In most cases, the long fibre is always packed under bale form for export purpose.
Short Fibre. Short fibre is the residue fibre from palm fibre process. Manufacturer will screen out the long fibre and the short fibre is the left over from the process. Besides the length, short fibre is having very close characteristic as long fibre as they are going through similar process. Short fibre moisture maintains at the range 12-15%, it is the best condition and raw material process to EFB pellet.
Mesocarp fibre. This is the fibre extract from the oil palm fruit. The mesocarp fibre is short in nature however it is not same as short fibre as we explain in early section. Because the mesocarp fibre is the fibre direct extract from the oil palm fruit, the fibre is length is about 20mm or shorter. But the diameter is finer and much oily as compare to the short fibre retrieve from shredded EFB.

In Malaysia, there are many people trade the above commodities or oil palm by-product. DST is one of the companies involved in above commodities for more than 10 years. With above explanation about the terms, we hope that it will be better for everyone to communicate toward the same biomass commodity.

There are much more oil palms by product available besides the above commodities such as palm kernel, decanter cake, etc. However over this article we only discuss some related to fibre category. In future, we may talk more on other commodities.

May 8, 2016September 16, 2016

EFB Pellet to Replace Wood Pellet?

EFB Pellet is not a new biomass product available in the market. It has been promote in the market to act as another alternative of biomass commodity. Unfortunately EFB pellet still not widely accept by most buyer.

In this article, we will review the basic differences for EFB pellet vs. wood pellet. Further more, we will share some of our expereince and thought why we think EFB pellet should gain high potential in renewable energy sector.

EFB Pellet or Wood Pellet?

DST has been in renewable energy sector for several years, we know the strength and potential of biomass commodity in available in Malaysia especially Malaysia government had launched 1MBAS project not long ago. The country is looking at biomass to generate 30million Ringgit in year 2020. Through our pass experience, we receive more inquiry about wood pellet instead of EFB pellet, why this happen?

Wood pellet has been in the biomass market for many years, especially Korea and Japan biomass sector has accepted wood pellet in their power plant. EFB pellet was initially invented acting as a substitution of wood pellet. Since we talk about substitution, we have compare both commodities from several aspects, such as pricing, specification, reliability and sustainability.

In order to turn EFB firbe into EFB pellet, the pellet manufacturer has to setup a pelletize process which mainly cover these steps:

De-humidified
Drying
Cutting into size or grinding
Pelletize

The process is pretty straight forward however involve substantial amount of energy. This has make the EFB pellet cost maintain at higher level as compare to wood pellet. Another draw back for EFB pellet is high ash content as compare to Wood Pellet.

Is EFB Facility Over Size?

We have involved in EFB pellet and other biomass commodity for more than 10 years, we are seeing the progress for this industry. From our perspective, many pellet manufacturers no matter in Malaysia or Indonasia are over optimistic about this commodity.

We learn through out the manufacturing process which we are very clear about the process challenge. Pelletize EFB fibre are totally difference than pelletize saw dust. We got to have the appropriate process setup in order to manufacture a quality product.

Over optimistic about the EFB pellet has cause many pellet manufacturers invested in the industry, but at the end find out insufficient customer order to maintain the operation. I feel sad while I am putting up this statement but this is the fact.

What is the Potential for EFB Pellet?

Pelletize EFB fibre is a matual technology and what we lack off is the marketing part. Many people still consider EFB pellet as a commodity for biomass. As EFB pellet manufacturer, we have to broaden our perspective or even strectch out our sense if we want to elevate the potential of EFB pellet.

Besides the manufacturer, Malaysia government should play an important role on promoting EFB Pellet in the world. Malaysia government has setup a department, NBS, National Biomass Strategy to chair the biomass activities. We really hope this department could bring our EFB pellet to worldwide.

If we always limited ourselves on replacing wood pellet with EFB pellet, I think this is a lose game for EFB pellet. EFB pellet should have wider and broader potential if we are able to adopt this commodity in other application.

April 10, 2016April 10, 2016

EFB Pellet Business Environment

EFB pellet is a biomass product claiming for renewable energy. Many people was getting excited about this product and start investing in the field while they start aware this product. DST has been involved in biomass renewable energy for many years, and we definitely do not want to miss out the opportunity on EFB pellet sactor.

Establish a sustainable EFB pellet business is a difference story than just an investment. We have much more to consider and execute in order to make it a sustainable and profitable. Through pass years of operating our EFB pellet manufacturing, we are very sure the pellet should be one of the future as energy becomes scarcity. However, we do acknowledge there are still challenges along the way.

In this article, we are going to discuss several business challenges for starting up an EFB pellet business in Malaysia.

Challenges for EFB Pellet Business

All business is facing it own challenge along the road, this imply to EFB pellet business environment too! The business owner may miss out certain

Raw Material of EFB Pellet
Skill Worker Availability
Efficiency and Operating Cost
Export/Import Regulation and Tax

What other alternative user could choose besides EFB pellet

Natural Gas
Petroleum product
Other renewable commodity

Is EFB Pellet a Growing Business?

From our pass experience, we think EFB pellet should be a valuable product but it should not be limited in biomass or renewable sector only.

Empty fruit bunch or EFB is a by-product from palm oil industry, must of the fibre has been used as the prime material for fibre mattress, biomass or landscape. Field industry has never stop exploring other opportunity for EFB. Pelletize EFB is one of the strategy the field engineer applied.

Currently the EFB pellet has mostly used in biomass industry however there are a few more sectors who need pelletize EFB. However difference industry may have respective pelletize condition. At this moment, we are seeing some obstacle for EFB pellet business in biomass sectos. Since DST has participarte in pelleting business for many in Malaysia, we are having better opportunity to widen up our EFB pellet application and business.

Biofuel Resource is a Pellet Supplier from Malaysia

Is Malaysia Government provides a Positive EFB Pellet Business Environment?

Investing million Ringgit amout setup an EFB pellet plant could be a challenging decision if we are unable to get support from government. Investor could look for tax exemption from Malaysia government or MIDA.

Besides tax exemption, Malaysia government also established certain organization such as SP Biomass in promoting the EFB pellet to Euro country. There are also exhibition, symposium, conference being held through out the years. You could always find the first hand information regarding Malaysia biomass or EFB pellet via SP Biomass.

Like we explain earlier, we agree, many investor who participate in EFB pellet business in Malaysia is facing great challenge this year. Besides the support from Malaysia government, as an EFB pellet investor or SME, we are having our own responsibility to expand the EFB plellet from Biomass to other sectors. The industry will be always there and just how we are going to position ourselves for next regime.

If you are one of the EFB pellet manufacturer, you are welcome leave your EFB Pellet business challenges which currently you are facing in below comments column. We may have some dialogue or brainstorm to widen up the business opportunity.

July 17, 2015July 17, 2015

Did EFB Pellet Accepted by the Biomass Market

DST is one of the EFB pellet manufacturer and supplier in Malaysia. We are getting many inquiry from various espects EFB pellet however we are seeing less trading after the inquiry. Many inquiries also indicate potential buyers are looking for alternative energy resources.

China government has come out an aggressive regulation to reduce and restrict the use of coal in order to improve air quality. Biomass is definitely one of the alternative energy source to fill up the energy gap from coal, and EFB pellet definitely one of the choices.

Current Available Biomass in the Market

Currently there are several biomass material, such as wood chip, Palm Kernel Shell (PKS), wood pellet. Most of the biomass above has been existed in the market for a period of time. With the large energy demanding gap from China, many buyers has extended their needs to other resources.

DST is one of the biomass supplier in Malaysia for many years. We are exploring the potential of EFB pellet as the new biomass resources since several years ago. We are anticipating a shortage of biomass resources in energy sector after coal has been banned, we strongly believe EFB pellet should be the hot selling biomass resource product.

DST Corporate Profile Organization

Challenges for EFB Pellet to be Market

Through out our marketing in biomass sector, we face several challenges while marketing the EFB pellet for the industry. These challenges include:

Pricing. Pelleting is consuming huge energy in a pellet mill. In order to manufacture a quality EFB pellet, the dry EFB fibre shall be heavily compress to high density pellet. DST has emphasized this pelleting process to ensure our EFB pellet quality, this also implies that we are producing the EFB pellet with no trade off in the manufacturing cost. Perhaps our EFB pellet cost is not under wood pellet price.
Packing and Handling. EFB pellet is a high density pellet but it requires extra care handling to prevent causing damage or broken. The EFB pellet shall be packed in jumbo bag and follow with proper handling through out the transportation process. A lot of handling guidances have to consider to ensure the EFB pellet is nicely delivery to customer site.
Availability. For our pellet mill setup, our pellet manufacturing ability is set at 1000MT per month. 1000MT should be a small amount as compare to a factory needs, but 1000MT of EFB pellet has already made us almost like non-stop for a month. Many companies’ buyer have rejected our proposal as we only have 1000MT EFB pellet per month as this volume is much less than their monthly consumption.

The above challenges should not be the stopper for DST to promote EFB pellet to the market. However this has slow down the EFB pellet to be marketed in industry application. Currently DST has worked with several boiler manufactuers in Malaysia to ensure our product suit the industry.

Will Market Accept EFB Pellet as Biomass Alternative?

Since a EFB pellet is manufacture via dedicate pelleting process, this also implies that the EFB pellet has the higher cost as compare to other raw biomass products such as PKS and wood-chip. In occasion, the EFB pellet is selling slightly higher price compare with wood pellet. With the high costing, EFB pellet has become less cost effective for many industries even though this product has other advantageous.

As the main EFB pellet supplier, DST has seek all possibility to market the EFB pellet. So far, we agree this product only means for a small niche of customers especially in Japan and Korea market. We have the flexibility to pack and handle the EFB pellet so that consumer customer needs are well taken care.

In short, since we launch our EFB pellet product, we know this is our upcoming biomass resource in energy sector but need sometime for customer to adopt especially the industry sector. DST is still very patient while come into promoting this product in the market, and we believe EFB pellet should be our future.

August 22, 2014

Overview of Biomass in Malaysia

While we are moving toward urbanization and looking for better living standard, this has lead the increasing demand in energy. This also apply to Malaysia. In order to fulfill the energy gap, Malaysia government has come out several counter measures to encourage the use of renewable energy, this include biomass energy. Biomass in Malaysia has recorded growth since pass few years, and the increasing trend is still continue.

Biomass and bioenergy are seeing considerable growth in years as general public and policy maker aware the inherent advantages of clean and green energy. Among the renewable energy, biomass energy is one of the low cost per MW among other renewable energy source..

Why Malaysia Committed in Biomass Renewable Energy?

Biomass in Malaysia is referring to plant waste being converted to energy. There are many ways for applying the biomass waste as renewable energy, now we are seeing more choices with better efficiency and effectiveness. Pelletizing is one of the process converting the biomass into more efficient pellet, such as efb pellet and saw dust pellet.

Target increase of biomass energy in South-East Asia

In overall Sourth-East Asia, there are about 15% of electrical energy was derived from biomass, and we targeted the figure should rise to 25% by the year of 2020. The same trend also apply to Malaysia.

Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Phillipine and Indonesia are expanding their biomass development in it own country. Thailand is the South-East Asia country having the largest renewable energy derive from biomass energy. However biomass energy in Malaysia also project increase substantially for next 10 years.

Biomass Prospect in Malaysia

The raw material of biomass in Malaysia could always refer to oil palm waste, sugar cane, peddy husk and wood-chip. Oil palm waste in Malaysia is the largest contribution among those biomass. Due to large availability and various form of biomass material in Malaysia, this has promote Malaysia having a good platform to develop it biomass industry.

Malaysia pellet manufacturer has gained more attention in worldwide biomass market. The resourceful of biomass commodity, technology and government incentive scheme has make the country has more export in pellet.

Biomass Target in Malaysia

For year 2010, the renewable energy in Malaysia achieve 510MW, and biomass energy contribute 470MW of energy. This has shown that the country is heavily relly on biomass for renewable energy. In year 2030, the biomass energy in Malaysia will increase to 1525MW.

DST as one of the biomass supplier in Malaysia, we have taken the opportunity to expand our biomass production line from raw biomass material into pelletize biomass product. We are very confident customer could select suitable biomass commodity from our comprehensive product line.

We also committed to work with our customer to provide high quality biomass commodity.

June 6, 2014June 6, 2014

Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell – Steam Cost

Know that many readers are facing challenge on selecting biomass and natural gas for generating heat or steam gas. This is a never ending debate unless we could specifically compare both commodities side by side within certain criteria.

Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell Comparison

There are many type of biomass commodities in Malaysia, however we want to minimize the variation and focus on the comparison between natural gas vs. palm kernel shell. Reader could change to other type of biomass instead of palm kernel shell with the same procedure.

Objective for Comparing Natural Gas vs. Palm Kernel Shell

We want to come out a calculation to show the material cost for generating 1000kg of steam between natural gas and palm kernel shell.

Basic Calorific Value for Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

Calorific value is the heat generated during the burning process. The calorific value for natural gas is 35,000kJ/m³, whereby the calorific value for palm kernel shell (PKS) is 4200kJ/kg or 17,640kJ/kg.

We need to move forward to calculate the natural gas and palm kernel shell requires in order generating 1000kg of steam.

Conversion Rate and Efficiency for Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

The conversion rate for Natural Gas is 0.8 whereby the palm kernel shell is only 0.65. In order words, 80% of the natural gas’s calorific value will be used to heat up the steam whereby palm kernel shell only occupied 65% of it calorific value.

Natural gas needs to take up 80m³ in order to heat up 1000kg of steam. On the other hand, you may need up to 200kg of palm kernel shell to heat up 1000kg of steam.

Material Cost Comparison between Natural Gas and Palm Kernel Shell

Now we have better understanding about the natural gas and palm kernel shell consumption in order to produce 1000kg of steam gas. The unit price of natural gas is about RM0.80 whereby palm kernel shell is RM0.20.

With the multiplication, the raw material cost for natural gas is RM64 compare to palm kernel shell RM40.

From the calculation, we know that the biomass system (palm kernel shell) is having 50% lower in term of raw material cost as compare to natural gas.

Hope this calculation could clear up some doubt about the raw material cost comparison between natural gas vs. palm kernel shell. However we haven’t considered the operation cost between these 2 system.

February 16, 2014

About Boiler Ash

Recently I received an email discuss about the application of boiler ash. I am quite happy as I am seeing there are people who want to explore more about the application for boiler ash.

Let me share what I understand about this boiler ash and see if we could brainstorm for having better solution on the boiler ash application.

There are many boiler mfg and boiler type available in the industry, and since we are talking about boiler ash, I would presume the boiler ash is actually coming from biomass boiler. Biomass boiler basically is a type of boiler burn biomass (EFB, palm kernel shell, wood chip, EFB pellet, rice husk, etc) as the heat source.

The boiler ash is the left over in the biomass boiler after the burning process. The boiler technician will periodically clean the ash.

Categorize of Boiler Ash

In ideal biomass boiler design, a particular boiler is designed base on dedicate biomass. However, in practical application, user always mixes several type of biomass available in the market. Take an example a particular biomass boiler is designed for EFB, however in actual case, the user may burn EFB, palm kernel shell for the boiler.

Boiler ash is the substance coming out from the boiler discharge. Because the boiler user is using more than one type of biomass commodity, this becomes the challenge that how we are going to categorize the boiler ash?

Application of Boiler Ash

I am not in the position to answer this question unless we clearly characterize the boiler ash. For instance, those boilers which only using EFB as the burning commodity, the boiler ash could be gather and sell as bunch ash.

However for those boiler ashes with little to now value, land fill should be the only application.

Pelletize the Boiler Ash

Pelletize could be simple process in the condition if you aware the commodity characteristic. The pelletize could be understand as a compression process to transfer a loose or spongy substance to a higher density substance.

Some of the substances could be compressed and bind as high density product from it nature, this include wood pellet and EFB pellet. However, some of the substance may need to add certain level of binder in order to form a pellet.

Personally I do not test whether boiler ash whether could be achieved pellet form via mechanical compression, but I really doubt so.

Hope this article did clear some of your doubt about boiler ash. Feel free to leave your comment in the follow column if any.