Houses in the country will soon for the first time use biomass electricity to light up their homes.
Markham Bio-mass project developer, Oil Search yesterday signed the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with PNG Power today in Port Moresby.
Oil Search owns 70 percent of the project and Aligned Energy 30 percent.
The PPA agreement will see state owned electricity supplier purchase electricity to beef up its Ramu grid capacity.
The project is located in Morobe Province, and more than 200,000 trees are being planted to feed this project.
PNG Biomass project will use wood chips from new plantation trees grown and sustainably harvested in the Markham Valley, to provide low cost, reliable baseload biomass power for the Lae region.
The PNG Biomass project is a result of several years of nursery research, plantation trials and engineering assessments, in cooperation with Markham Valley landowners, the PNG Forest Research Institute and PNG Forest Authority.
Under the PPA, PNG Biomass will deliver up to 30MW of biomass-fired base load power to the Ramu grid when it comes into operation in 2019.
“We have been exploring the potential for the Markham Valley Biomass project and for cost effective gas fired generation in the Highlands for a number of years, as part of our commitment to work with PPL to provide household consumers and businesses with reliable electricity in PNG. The agreements announced today represent a tangible step forward in providing cost-effective, reliable and socially sustainable supplies of power to the country, said Peter Botten, Oil Search managing director.
“Our partnership with PPL in the Ramu Power Project is delivering long-term power solutions for PNG that will have a meaningful contribution to its citizens as well as help maintain a stable operating environment in the country.”
Caption: Picture source Emmanuel Narakobi.