Asian Agri builds five biogas power plants

Asian Agri, one of the world?s largest oil palm plantation firms, is currently in the process of developing five biogas power plants in Sumatra using palm oil mill effluent as feedstock, local reports said.

The reports quoted General Manager of Asian Agri Freddy Widjaya as saying Thursday that two of the power plants are located in North Sumatra, two in Riau, and one in Jambi. Each unit is designed to have a capacity of 2 MW.

Freddy said that two units are expected to start production in the middle of this month. He added that the power plants use Japanese technology.

Director General of Plantation Gamal Nasir welcomes the project, saying that the electricity could be partly sold to state-owned electricity firm PT PLN to help increase power supply in the regions. (*)