06/08/2012 (The Star) - Major plywood mills in Sarawak are increasingly using wood residues to generate energy for their operations, according to Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corp (STIDC) industrial planning manager Nicholas Andrew Lissem.

He said there were now 14 biomass plants in Sarawak, which supplied energy for use in the mills.

In fact, major timber groups such as Shin Yang, Samling, Rimbunan Hijau, Ta Ann Holdings and KTS all owned biomass plants.

“The volume of wood residues consumed by these biomass plants is about 1.1 million tonnes last year,” Andrew told StarBiz.

Enough: Wood residues are readily available as there are 45 plywood mills, 171 sawmills,
21 veneer mills and 34 dowel/moulding mills in Sarawak.

Besides using their own wood residues, some of the mills also sourced wood wastes from smaller mills and other wood processing factories to feed their biomass plants.

STIDC figures show that there are 45 plywood mills, 171 sawmills, 21 veneer mills and 34 dowel/moulding mills in Sarawak.

Meanwhile, Sarawak Timber Association Panel Products committee chairman Stephen Lau Lee Kiong said using wood residues to generate electricity was one effective way to manage wastes so that “it will not cause harm to the environment.”

In the early years, he said wood residues were not utilised economically with much disposed of through open burning, burning in incinerators or illegally dumped into the river causing pollution and other environmental problems.

“An average plywood mill with a monthly output of between 7,000 cu mand 8,000 cu m can generate wood residues to produce between 3MW and 5MW of electricity.

“A biomass plant with 3MW capacity will cost between RM10mil and RM15mil to build while the capital investment in a 5MW power plant is between RM20mil and RM30mil.

“The amount of electricity a biomass plant can generate will depend on the type of technology used,” said Lau, who is also KTS group deputy managing director.

He pointed out that biomass plants were not cheap in terms of maintanence whereby plywood mills with their own biomass plants would still have to pay Syarikat SESCO Bhd, which is owned by Sarawak Energy Bhd for standby electricity based on minimium and maximum demand.

Andrew, meanwhile, said although the one-off capital investment in a biomass plants was huge, the long-term economic returns from energy savings would be substantial if plywood mills had to purchase power from the state grid.

A plywood mill manager said his mill could save between RM400,000 and RM500,000 a month in electricity bill by having its own biomass plant.

With even wood residues being economically used, Andrew said Sarawak had optimised the utilisation of its timber resources.

Last year, Sarawak earned almost RM7.08bil in foreign exchange in the exports of logs and timber products, down 4% from RM7.35bil in 2010.

Besides plywood which accounted for 71% of the total timber product export in 2011, Sarawak also exported sawn timber, veneer, dowel/mouldings, laminated board, woodchips, medium density fibre board and particle board.

Palm oil, which earned RM8.3bil in exports, overtook timber last year as Sarawak's third most important export revenue after natural gas (RM50.3bil) and petroleum (RM22.1bil).