Company looking to expand bio-gass electricity

By PETER ESILA
NEW Britain Palm Oil Ltd (NBPOL) sells around 650 kilowatts of electricity to PNG Power Ltd for the Kimbe grid from its two bio-gas plants in West New Britain.
NBPOL PNG country manager Robert Nilkare told The National that NBPOL intended to expand its bio-gas potential to all its other sites around the country as well as the NBPOL operations in the Solomon Islands in the near future. NBPOL WNB operations currently operates two bio-gas plants at its Kumbango and Mosa oil mills, just outside Kimbe town.
Nilkare said the Kumbango bio-gas plant could produce 1.8 megawatts (peak load is 1.1MW) and the Mosa plant was 2.7MW (peak load is 1.7MW).
“We would be happy to work with the governments of PNG and the Solomon Islands and PNG Power Ltd to achieve a sustainable power source for PNG and the Solomon Islands,” he said.
“We are currently using internally around 2.2MW of bio-gas power and selling around 650KW of electricity to PNG Power for the Kimbe grid.”
Nilkare said as an independent power producer (IPP), NBPOL charges PNG Power Ltd around 30toea/kwh.
NBPOL is also an association member of IP3 (IPP Industry Group) in PNG.
Its operations in the country include the Ramu Valley in Madang, Milne Bay, Poliamba in New Ireland and Higaturu in Northern.
NBPOL’s operation in the Solomon Islands is the Guadalcanal Plains Palm Oil Ltd (GPPOL) outside capital Honiara.
GPPOL, which used NBPOL management and expertise from WNB to start off, is now one of the biggest export revenue earners for the Solomon Islands.