Lang
Consumer goods giant Unilever is using biomethane produced from palm oil mill effluent (POME) to supply energy to its palm oil refinery in Indonesia.
Unilever announced on August 21 that, as part of its effort to make its palm oil supply chain more transparent and traceable, it is working directly with producers and mills to carry out a significant share of palm oil refining in-house, bypassing traditional intermediaries.
As part of this strategy, the company expanded Unilever Oleochemical Indonesia (UOI), its palm oil processing facility in Sei Mangkei, North Sumatra. Following the expansion, however, the site became Unilever’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
To support its target of cutting global Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 100% by 2030 compared with 2015 levels, Unilever said it has started shifting toward renewable thermal energy. The company has begun replacing natural gas used at UOI with biomethane produced from palm oil mill effluent sourced from two nearby mills.
The compressed biomethane, or bioCNG, is transported by Asian biogas company KIS Group. Unilever said it plans to expand its partnership with KIS to include a third mill by the end of 2025, with plans to source biomethane from six additional mills over the following two years.
Unilever expects to source more than 800,000 MMBtu of biomethane annually for the UOI facility, meeting nearly a quarter of its energy needs by 2030.
According to a 2021 report on the use of biomethane from palm oil mill effluent, Indonesia has enough POME supply to produce biomethane equivalent to more than 5% of the country’s projected natural gas consumption in 2024.