World Renewable Energy Congress -IndonesiaInternational Conference on Renewable Energy and

Energy Efficiency, 16-20 October 2011, Bali, Indonesia

Biogas Utilization in Indonesia: Lesson Learned & Future Development

Arif Yudiarto*, Novi Syaftika, Wargiantoro Prabowo and MAM Oktaufik
Energy Resources Development Technology Centre,
Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT)
Jl.MH Thamrin No.8, Jakarta Pusat 10340, Indonesia
Member of IRES
*Corresponding Author: arifyudiarto@yahoo.com

Abstract
Utilization of biogas has been a tendency limited to small scale for cooking and lighting purposes in
rural communities. However, along with various efforts to substitute fossil fuels lately, the utilization
of biogas for a larger scale such as for electricity generation increasingly received attention. This
paper discuss the potential and implementation status of biogas in Indonesia and the efforts to
overcome the biogas weaknesses, and also to formulate the biogas development strategy by assessing
several options of implementation which have significant influences and realistic to be applied, as
well as the utilities for steam and electricity generation for biorefinery or agroindustry.
Keywords: Biogas, Biofuel, Waste to Energy

1. Introduction
Utilization of Biogas as an energy source is known as a low density 'low value - high volume' of
energy source, so that utilization has been a tendency limited to small scale for cooking and lighting
purposes in rural communities. However, along with various efforts to substitute fossil fuels lately, the
utilization of biogas for a larger scale such as for electricity generation increasingly received attention.
This is due to the advantages of biogas compare to other biofuels, namely : 1) Raw materials are
relatively cheap, some others even have no cost as it is a liquid waste from industry or daily activities,
2) The production process is simple and inexpensive, 3) Help to solve environmental problem, both in
reducing the waste which is used as raw materials, and also avoid or reduce methane gas emission
directly to the atmosphere which is 22 times more dangerous than CO2 and 4) Biogas utilization as a
clean fuel, improving industrial process efficiency. Therefore, the biogas development and utilization
strategy in the future should be oriented to have lower investment amount with a strong-low cost
digester, biogas productivity improvement, and efficient biogas utilization.
This paper discuss the potential and implementation status of biogas in Indonesia and the efforts to
overcome the biogas weaknesses, also to formulated the biogas development strategy by assessing
several options of implementation which have significant influences and realistic to be applied.

2. Biogas Potential and Status in Indonesia

In comparison with the other countries which have hundred thousands to million units of small scale
biogas (such as China, India), Indonesia is far behind in biogas utilizations. In fact, there were many
prototypes and utilization of almost all scales and abundant biogas sources have been known in
Indonesia.
Therefore, in research and development term, Indonesia is not left behind but in implementation
specifically in fuel supply problem solving. Regarding to this situation, it is necessary to give
recomendations to the government which encourage the use of renewable energy gradually to replace
fossil fuels. By considering the availability of the raw materials which ready to be processed in
digester, the potential of biogas is quite high (see Table 1).

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World Renewable Energy Congress -IndonesiaInternational Conference on Renewable Energy and

Energy Efficiency, 16-20 October 2011, Bali, Indonesia
Table 1. Production Potential and annual utilization of Biogas
Biogas Potential
Volume
Main Materials
(million ton or
Volume
Energy
million m3)
(million m3) (billion kwh)

Municipal waste
Cattle dung
CPO waste (POME)
Tapioca waste
Total

288
150
69
225
732

6,300
1,780
1,380
382
9842

Utilization Potential *)
Electricity
Heat
(MWe)
(MWh)

37,000
10,700
8,280
2.3
55,982.3

1,424
403
312
128
2267

2.07
0.60
0.46
0.021
3.15

*) utilization assumed by combined heat and power (CHP) system in electricity composition 33 % and
heat 49 %.
Table 2. Biogas Application in Indonesia

Main Materials

Municipal waste
Cattle dung
CPO waste (POME)
Tapioca waste
Total

Biogas Utilizations
(Year 2011)
Volume
Energy
(million
(Billion
m3)
kwh)
0.53
0.088
0.66
0.110
1.59
0.265
0.90
0.149
3.68
0.612

Details
%
0.7
1.0
3.2
3.9
8.8

Utilizations
Electricity, maximum 10 MW
Heat (household fuel),
10 thousand unit biogas @ 5 m3 (in
average)
Electricity, maximum 10 MW

3. Biogas Future
The production scale (small, middle or large) distribution should not been seen as weaknesses but as
flexibility in any utilization. Table 3 shows utilization potential related to location and conditions of
the stakeholders.
Table 3. Priority scale in production and utilization

Main materials

Production Scale*)

Utilization*)
PLN grid electricity
Small and middle industry
(UKM)
Electricity

Municipal waste

Small (10-100 KW)

Middle (100 KW-1 MW)
Large (above 1 MW)

Cattle Dung

Small
Middle
Micro (below 10 kw)

Electricity
Heat (households)

CPO Production waste

(POME)

Large

Electricity

Large
Middle
*) Based on scale of priority
Tapioca industry waste

Electricity

4. Discussion
The exploration of the biogas potential implementation usually face obstacles and challenges. For
example, many Agroindustry which already produce electricity from biogas find difficulties to sale
the electricity to the public utility. On the other hand, there are no certain financial scheme that
available for biogas application in households scale from cattle dung to help farmers in utilizing the
biogas plant.
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Energy Efficiency, 16-20 October 2011, Bali, Indonesia

4.1 Solution for the particular problem: an efficient micro scale electricity in rural area
Many studies indicated that biogas from cattle dung is potential to replace 25% LPG used at recent
time. Most of the problem is the location of cattle farm placed in remote area which has no or very
low supply of electricity. Therefore, biogas utilization for electricity needs a serious attention. People
in rural area people usually find no significant difficulties in social engineering term, because they
already used to utilize agricultural, plantation or forest residues for firewood. At the same time, they
are hoping to enjoy entertainment and get the information by televisions to eliminate information gaps
with urban peoples. The problem is, biogas utilization for electricity is not efficient and only 30% of
the whole biogas utilization. To keep the biogas utilization efficient, the technology of CHP
(combined heat and power) needs to be applied in a micro scale using a micro turbine. The next
problem emerged is the expensive price of the micro turbine and it should be imported. Innovation in
this field needs to be created to support the livestock, biogas production, and communal utilizations
(10-30 households) .
4.2 Small scale power generation to develop small business enterprises
Utilization of biogas that impact business development and job opportunity creation lies in the smallscale livestock (100-1000 cows) and processing waste in the sub-district level. The 10 KW power
generation was turned on for 8 hours per workday require 40 m3 of biogas each day. It can be
met by cattle manure from 120 cows per day or 560 kg/day of municipal waste.
The livestock with 120-1000 cows is relatively rare in Indonesia, so its only a few villages which be
able to generate around 10 KW of electricity, unless supported by other raw materials
derived from industries such as small scale tapioca or tofu manufactures. However, the government
policy already encourages farmers to form Koperasi (cooperation) with 20-30 members, and each of
them get the credit for 6-10 cows, (as implemented by the local government in Central Aceh in
transmigration area of Ketapang), equipped with biogas installation and 10 kw genset, so that the
quotes "once pedaling, two-three islands passed through" can be realized. The cattle also support the
plan for meat self sufficiency in 2014, to supply energy for rural industrialization and further prevent
direct methane gas emitted ferom the cattle shed. Using a similar approach, this credit can be applied
for cooperation members with the same amount, to build an organic fertilizer production units as well
as the plastic recycle unit which is driven by the power generation of 10-100 kw and move in
the small town area which produce market or domestic waste about 1 tons / day.
4.3 Priority : medium to large scale biogas electricity generation from industrial waste
This is a business opportunity that can be driven by the private sector which has industries producing
biomass waste that can be processed into biogas, particularly tapioca industry and palm oil mill. So
far, the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) under the Kyoto Protocol has developed it and will be
expired in 2012. Without the CDM, utilization of liquid waste from this two kind industry should be
encouraged, the challenge is to generate electricity from both, since only large scale biogas power
generation which seen to be comerrcially feasible by foreign investor who interested in the application
of CDM in Indonesia. Therefore, a minimum 30 tons/h of EFB from palm oil mill, can
generate around 2,592,000 m3 biogas. From 430m3/day or 129.600 m3/year POME (Palm Oil Mill
Effluent), can generate 15.6 million kwh/year or the power capacity of 78 MW.
If the power is assumed as the smallest unit, then the production of 69 million m3 of POME
will obtain the equivalent of 175 power plant units at 1.78 MW spread across plant oil mills
in Indonesia. This means that all palm oil mills will produce large-scale of power generation (above 1
MW). Tapioca manufactures vary from scale of 1 ton to 1,200 tons cassava per day. Those
could produce power of 2 kW-2.4 MW. Most of them are in medium-scale and few in
large scale (above 1 MW). A sufficient amount of municipal waste (60 tons/day) will dominate the
biogas power generation which shows the power generated by municipal waste in medium scale and
regency level.
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Energy Efficiency, 16-20 October 2011, Bali, Indonesia

4.4 CHP to support biorefinery in future

Biogas production and utilization should not only rely on the tapioca manufacture and Palm Oil Mill
that has certain location and amount of waste. The optimal production of the
Biogas (for power and heat) will be achieved if biogas has been calculated and determined in the
beginning. For example in bioethanol industry, with the electricity needs of 0.2 kwh/ litre
of bioethanol and heat 0.3 kwh / litre of bioethanol produced, then 1 m3 biogas will be obtained
through CHP system and produce 9 liters of bioethanol. If 35% of biogas can be
met by bioethanol industry itself, then the rest can be obtained from several alternative sources, such
as developed the cows fattening. Practically, every 9 liters of bioethanol production per day would
require 2 cattles, so every 1,000 liters of bioethanol production per day require 200 cattles.
If
the raw material of
bioethanol
derived from
sweet sorghum stem, each
25 tonnes
of sorghum stems will produce 12.5m3 sap which can produce 1,000 liters bioethanol and also
12.5 tons of wet pulp. Coupled with the seeds and leaves, a plus green forage will be produced with
quantity of 20 tons, which could feed 1,000 cows (5 times forage feed requirements for 200 head of
cattles, generate enough biogas to produce 1,000 litres bioethanol). Thus, a system of biogas-based
Biorefinery and sweet sorghum can be obtained. The inputs are from all parts of sweet sorghum as
well as fertilizers and feed additives, while the output are bioethanol, beef and forage plus.
The schematic of Biorefinery plant is described in Figure.1 for a lowest medium-scale bioethanol
production capacity of 10,000 litres/day. It is implicitly described that the bigas based Biorefinery
system will be more efficient and environmentally friendly than conventional systems.
Make-up fertilizer
Wet grain and leaf
75 t/day

Make-up feed

CATTLE
3,000 heads/period

Fattening
Sweet sorghum
250-500 hectars
Organic
Fertilizer and
irrigation

Biogas, 3,000 m3/day

CHP

Stalks
250 t/day

Bagasse 125 ton/day

Juice
125 m3/day

Steam and
electricity
for process

Wastewater
as drink
115 m3/day

FEED COMPONENT
140 ton/day

BIOETHANOL
10,000 liter/day

Figure 1. Diagram of sweet sorghum and biogas based biorefinery

5. Recommendation
The development and utilization of Biogas in the future can be proposed through the following
strategies:
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World Renewable Energy Congress -IndonesiaInternational Conference on Renewable Energy and

Energy Efficiency, 16-20 October 2011, Bali, Indonesia

(1). Use mainly raw materials that can be directly fermented anaerobically, such as agroindustry wastewater, farm waste, and household or markets organic waste.
(2). Minimized energy use the preparation and processing of liquid waste into biogas, as well
as distribute and utilize biogas as fuel.
(3). Utilize biogas as efficient as possible, for example by implementing a combined heat and
power (CHP) system to support industries that require electricity and heat simultaneously. The
role of biogas together with syngas in the biorefinery system that produces various food
products, industrial materials and fuels will increase the production efficiency significantly, thus
increasing the competitiveness of products.
(4). Facilitate power produced or excess electricity from biogas power generation connected to
the national grid. Government incentive is needed to encourage the biogas power generation.

6. References:
[1] M.A.M Oktaufik, Arif Yudiarto, M. Rosjidi (2010), Energy and Biorefinery Concept of Cassava and
Sweet Sorghum as Feedstocks in Indonesia, 7th Biomass-Asia Workshop, Jakarta.
[2] Luis Troche (2004), CHP In the Ethanol Industry, US Protection and Environment Agency.
[3] NN (2005), The Potential Role of Combined Heat and Power Systems in Destroying Volatile Organic
Compounds from Dried Distillers Grain Solids Dryers in the Ethanol Industry, Integration of VOC Energy
and Environmental Analysis, Inc., and Power Equipment Associates, Inc.
[4] H. N. Chanakya et al (2005), Evolving biomass-based biogas plants:The ASTRA experience, Centre for
Sustainable Technologies, Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science.

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