MODELLING AND OPTIMIZATION OF PALM OIL INDUSTRY BIOMASS WASTES FOR SUSTAINABLE POWER GENERATION IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL SARAWAK

Sarawak is a state with abundance amount of energy resources such as hydropower, coal and natural gas. Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) is one of the projects in Central Sarawak which aims to accelerate the economic growth and to improve the quality of life of people in Sarawak. This corridor is designated to utilise all the natural resources available in Sarawak for intense industrialization activities such as energy intensive industries. As such, a lot of power generation plants which derived from coal is planned to be built and directly depleted Sarawak precious resources especially the coal supply as to satisfy the energy need for the corridor. In 2013, 70.9 % of the plantation area in Sarawak is occupied by oil palm plantation. Consequently, due to large hectares of this crop plantation in Sarawak, the generation of biomass wastes from this industry is expected to be enonnous in which could be exploited as alternative fuel for power generation. Therefore, the study main aim is to determine the sustainability of utilizing palm oil biomass waste as a substitution fuel for coal power plant. The study focuses on the available biomass waste material frolD palm oil industry located in Northern and Central Sarawak and Mukah coal power plant is designated as case study plant. The study is conducted in the form of literature review, questionnaire survey study, modelling, and optimization focusing on the most sustainable system for biomass waste as an alternative fuel for power generation in Central Sarawak especially in term of transportation system to power plant location in the form of biomass densification. From this study, it is found that about 2419.38 MW of energy could be produced from empty fruit bunch in five divisions of Northern and Central Sarawak. This could save about 19,074.42 of ktonne per year of carbon emission to atmosphere. In addition, the total electrical power potential generated from empty fruit bunch pellet for fifteen palm oil mills are also studied in which about 341.41 MW of energy could be produced from such pellet. Ifall empty frui t bunch pellets used as fuel, about 2691.69 ktonne per year of carbon could be saved from emission. The total of electrical power generated by empty fruit bunch pellet from Northern and Central Sarawak could sufficiently be substituted as fuel for coal power plant in Mukah in which is rated as 270 MW. Therefore, it can be concluded that utilisation of empty fruit bunch as substitution fuel for Mukah Coal Power Generation is environmentally superior and economically competitive