Waste-to-energy projects on the rise

(Picture credit: Morguefile)

With rising growth and rapid urbanisation across Asia, countries are increasingly concerned with being sustainable in meeting their energy needs. As countries explore all possible energy options to meet their increasing consumption, the second day of the Clean Energy Expo Asia conference during SIEW discussed innovative solutions to manage the build-up of waste that is emerging as a potential source for energy.

For many years, waste has been costly pollution--most of which has been disposed either by burning or ploughing back into the soil. However, this is changing amidst depleting reserves of oil and gas, coupled with rising greenhouse gas emissions in meeting growing energy needs in the region.

"Waste is now a resource," noted Mr Lim Chiow Giap, Senior General Manager, Keppel Integrated Engineering (KIE), a leader in environmental engineering. To date, KIE has implemented some 350 water and waste water treatment projects and more than 100 waste-to-energy projects in over 25 countries.

In recent years, various projects on converting waste to energy have been initiated across the region, and several more are in the pipeline. Mr Koen Janssen, Director, AES Climate Solutions ASEAN, explained that this has been largely triggered by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol. As part of the CDM--which came into force at the start of 2006--a developed country with an emissions reduction commitment can earn certified emissions reduction (CER) credits for implementing emissions reduction projects in developing countries.

Challenges in harnessing potential of waste to energy

The abundance of biodiversity in developing Asia holds a wealth of potential feedstock options, i.e. residual biomasses such as straw, bagasse, empty fruit baskets (EFB), and corn. For such waste-to-energy projects, the supporting technology and equipment to harness the potential, such as digesters and gasification systems, is also well-established and cost-efficient--having been in operation for several decades in large industries like breweries and soft drink companies.

Dr John Lee, Sales Manager, Caterpillar, noted that, on average, every tonne of biomass can produce about 1MWh of energy.

However, industry players at the session cited logistical and social issues to overcome in bringing waste-to-energy projects to scale. While there have been a growing number of CDM projects in the region, most are still in the pilot phase or are small scale ranging in capacity from 1 to 10MW.

Mr Janssen attributed the lukewarm local interest thus far to the largely conservative stance in Asia, where industries are still very focused on core competencies. For instance, the palm oil industry has been mainly concentrating on palm oil production rather than efficiency improvements and cost savings.

Mr Passi Rousu, President, Chempolis Asia & Pacific, also alluded to the food versus fuel dilemma, especially in harnessing food crops for energy.

To encourage adoption of such waste-to-energy projects, Dr Lee pointed out that that local involvement is key and shared Caterpillar's business model of local distribution and dealership to tap upon the local know-how and skill sets. Elsewhere, companies such as AES Climate Solutions ASEAN have also made significant advances in the region by communicating the benefits of waste to energy as an alternative source of energy and cost savings from offsetting in-house energy usage.

27 standalone projects

Mr Janssen shared that there are currently some 27 standalone projects by AES Climate Solutions ASEAN across Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, introducing advanced anaerobic (i.e. without air) digesters to capture biogas produced at food-processing factories such as tapioca starch and palm oil mills for combustion. Previously, the biogas would simply have been released into the atmosphere.

Industry players are confident that waste holds much promise to be realised, especially with sustainability emerging as a key priority, as Asian countries advance their economic growth. However, the extent to which such waste-to-energy projects will develop in this region remains a big unknown. Mr Lim Chiow Giap surmised that the outcome will depend very much on how local issues in logistics will be overcome and how the mindsets of local communities will evolve.

BY : Lim Feng Ling, EMA staff