Energy- and Eco-Efficiency

Huge Potential for Savings and Income for Thai Agro-Industry

GTZ and the Department of Alternative Energy Development and Energy Efficiency (DEDE) launched the project Energy and Eco-Efficiency in Agro-Industry (E3Agro) in July 2004.  After only few weeks a concept has been worked out on how to make use out of the huge amount of wastes in the Thai agro-industry. Palm oil has been chosen as the pilot sector. In its last year the project became an international showcase for energy- and eco-efficiency.

Dr. Rudolf Rauch, principal advisor of E3Agro, recalls the initial phase: “In mid 2004 there was only one pilot biogas plant which emitted methane unused into the air”. Since then six large biogas plants have been put into operation to clean the highly polluted waste water and burn methane emissions to produce electricity which then is fed into the grid.

The feed-in-tariff plays a crucial role in allowing the biomass surplus in the agro-industry   to be used for energy generation. Without the regulations, enterprises would be unable to dispose of their waste or would burn it inefficiently. Therefore, E3Agro has also contributed to the improvement of the framework conditions of using renewable energy resources.

In 2004 only few small projects were registered under the Very Small Power Producer Act (VSPP). They supplied a few hundred KW from photovoltaic plants. The approval procedures were long and complicated and the grid feed-in was limited to 1 MW only. Now the procedures have been simplified and feed-in amount increased to 10 MW with 0.3 THB per kWh in addition to the normal price. This resulted in the break-through of biogas power plants and energy-efficient production processes because enterprises could also sell each kWh they saved.

A better framework alone would not have been sufficient for a change as palm oil mill owners understood themselves only as oil producers. In cooperation with the Palm Oil Crushing Mills Association (POCA), E3Agro, therefore, started a benchmark program involving 18 mills in its first phase. Together with the enterprises Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been defined, which cover all costs and environmental related production factors, such as oil loss, energy consumption and waste streams.

The data was collected by the mills and sent regularly to E3Agro for further analysis and anonymous comparison. Each company received a quarterly report about its performance compared to the competitors. Every quarter the benchmark teams of the companies conducted site visits in different regions and exchanged ideas and experiences on the developments. At the end of 2006 the participating enterprises have gained a total benefit of increased productivity of about EUR 10 Mio. per year from reduced oil loss, reduced energy consumption, and electricity sales from biogas plants, and many more are in the planning phase or under construction. A higher price for “green electricity” would have an even more positive effect on income. One single palm oil crushing mill could produce 10 MW out of its solid and liquid wastes.

While energy is produced, waste water is treated, which avoid the discharge of climate-damaging methane. This makes biogas projects interesting for CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) in order to generate additional income from sales of so- called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). While few CDM projects have been approved already, eight applications from the palm oil industry have been submitted.

The positive experiences from the benchmark program in the palm oil sector are now being transferred into other energy-intensive agro-industries, e.g. in the tapioca starch and shrimp industry, the two areas in which Thailand is export world champion. The focus in the tapioca starch industry is on efficient production and utilization of biogas substituting grid electricity and fuel oil    in the production process.

In the shrimp sector energy efficiency is the main issue. 500,000 engines for the paddlewheel aerator are operating in over 30,000 shrimp farms, in order to provide oxygen in intensive shrimp farms. Half a million engines with an electric power of 2 Kw each sum up to 1 GW, which is approximately the production power of a large coal-fired or nuclear power plant.

A systematic study by E3Agro about the operations and efficiency of the aerators has revealed that although not all of them are working at the same time, a high amount of energy are literally paddled into the air. The saving potential is huge. The engines work at only at 60-70% efficiency. Another 30% gets lost during the mechanical transfer onto the paddlewheels, and even here, depending on the types and parameter settings (submersion depth and frequency) of the paddlewheels, a difference of over 50% in efficiency could be observed.

Pilots in two selected shrimp farms are now being implemented to demonstrate the saving potential. It is a co-operation with Siemens Thailand, who provides efficient engines, while state-of-the-art data collection system and water sensors are being provided by the Wissenschaftlich-Technische Werkstätten (WTW). Important parameters such as the oxygen content in water can be monitored over a period of 4-5 months of a shrimp culture. Flowmeters from the company Ott had been used in laboratory tests of the aerators.

The work of E3Agro does not only receive high attention in Thailand, where the project hardly could cope with the many requests to give presentations on seminars, but also on the international stage. For example IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic Aquaculture Movements, has invited E3Agro to present its results on the Organic World Congress which will be held  from June 18-20 2008 in Modena, Italy.