Malaysia is blessed with abundant biomass resources due to its strong agricultural sector and huge amount of biomass wastes generated by the palm oil industry. Under the National Energy Transition Roadmap, Malaysia aims to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels from 96 per cent in 2023 to 77 percent by 2050, while increasing the share of renewable energy in total primary energy supply from 4 per cent to 23 percent over the same period.

The National Biofuel Policy of Malaysia, launched in 2006 encourages the use of environmentally friendly, sustainable and viable sources of biomass energy. Under the Five Fuel Policy, the government of Malaysia has identified biomass as one of the potential renewable energy. However, the country is yet to realize its bioenergy potential with only 441MW installed biomass energy capacity in 2024.

The National Energy Transition Roadmap (NETR) introduced both demand-side and supply-side interventions to increase the contribution of biomass energy  in Malaysia’s energy mix. The concerted efforts are targeted to increase biomass energy generation to 1.4GW and increase biofuels production to 3.5 billion litres by 2050.

Biomass Energy Resources in Malaysia

Malaysia produces more than 168 million tonnes of biomass annually, including oil palm biomass, forestry biomass, rice husk, rice straw, coconut biomass, sugarcane waste and wood wastes. Being a major agricultural commodity producer in the region Malaysia is well-positioned to promote the use of biomass as a renewable energy source in the Southeast Asian region.

Malaysia has been one of the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil for the last few decades. The palm oil industry, besides producing crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel oil, produces palm kernel shell, press fibre, empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm oil mill effluent (POME), palm trunk (during replanting) and palm fronds (during pruning).

Malaysia has approximately 5.25 million hectares of land under oil palm plantation in 2022. Over 75% of total area planted is located in just four states, Sabah, Johor, Pahang and Sarawak, each of which has more than half a million hectares under cultivation. The total amount of processed FFB (Fresh Fruit Bunches) was estimated to be 75 million tons while the total amount of EFB produced was estimated to be 19.92 million tons. Around 50 million tons of POME is produced in Malaysia annually, which has the potential to produce an estimated 15 billion m³ of biogas can be produced each year.

Malaysia is the world’s second largest producer of crude palm oil. Almost 70% of the volume from the processing of fresh fruit bunch is removed as wastes in the form of empty fruit bunches, palm kernel shells, palm oil mill effluent etc. With more than 451 mills in Malaysia, this palm oil industry generate around 100 million dry tons of biomass. Malaysia has more than 2400 MW of biomass and 410 MW of biogas potential, out of which only a fraction has been harnessed until now.

Rice husk is another important agricultural biomass resource in Malaysia with good potential for biopower cogeneration. An example of its attractive energy potential is biomass power plant in the state of Perlis which uses rice husk as the main source of fuel and generates 10 MW power to meet the requirements of 30,000 households.

The 1.5MW Titi Serong power plant, located at Parit Buntar (Perak), is based on rice husk while the 2MW Sungai Dingin Palm Oil Mill project make use of palm kernel shell and fibre to generate steam and electricity. The 14MW TSH Bioenergy Sdn Bhd, located at Tawau (Sabah), is the biggest biomass power plant in Malaysia and utilizes empty fruit bunches, palm oil fibre and palm kernel shell as fuel resources.