MPOB director-general Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir said oil palm biomass, including empty fruit bunches, mesocarps fibres and kernel shells which are by-products from the oil extraction process, can in fact be re-used.

“In Malaysia, the palm oil industry produces 80 million to 90 million tonnes of biomass every year.

“This biomass can be turned into bio-pellets to be burnt in boilers at power plants to ultimately produce electricity,” he told FMT.

At present, he said, bio-pellets produced in Malaysia are mostly exported to Japan and Korea where there is huge demand.

Biomass can also be turned into bio-coal, which is similar to coal.

Both products can serve as a cleaner alternative to coal, which contains sulphur that leads to acid rain, he said.

“If we use more bio-pellets or bio-coal in electricity generation, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

He said studies have been done on the use of bio-pellets, and urged authorities in Malaysia to look into the implementation of such a practice.

So far, he said, around five power plants use biomass to generate electricity to the grids.

He said palm oil mill effluent can also produce methane, a bio-gas which can be used in the generation of electricity, while biomass can be treated through a chemical process to produce bio-ethanol as bio-fuel to be added to petrol fuel.

“In Thailand and Brazil, they use ethanol from sugar cane for the transport sector, just like we use palm bio-diesel.”

Parveez said MPOB’s vision for the palm oil sector is for palm oil to play a bigger role in generating electricity due to its large and relatively untapped potential.