The energy crisis is bound to threaten Indonesia in the next few years following the significant gap between high energy demand and domestic oil supplies. Indonesian energy demand in 2010 was 3.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD). The demanded energy comprised fuel, gas, and coal. In 2025, energy demand will increase to 7.7 million BOEPD. From that amount, the proportion of fuel and gas is around 47%.
Indonesia is currently facing a serious energy scarcity. Many remote areas in Indonesia has not been electricity. There are 2519 villages in Indonesia where people live in darkness without electricity. The threat of climate change, the depletion of fossil fuels, environmental pollution, and the growing energy demand increase the urgency for new sustainable and reliable energy sources.
Several solar, hydro, wind and bio-energy technologies are already implemented and common in day-to-day life. The market share of bioenergy, such as bioethanol, bioelectricity and biodiesel are increasing. However, bioenergy is not always sustainable. Deforestation and competition with food production for arable land are two occurring disadvantages.
Therefore, in this article, we offer a new innovation to harvest electricity from rice plants (Oryza sativa), called e-paddy. The concept is to change the sun radiation into electricity by integrating the roots of the rice plant and the anode compartment of the microbial fuel cell (MFC).
The e-paddy has two major components: rhizodeposits produced from the plant roots as a substrate and power plants of organic compounds in an MFC’s bacterial cell. Plants grow in the anode where rhizodeposits are the substrates oxidized by electrochemically active bacteria to generate electricity.
The plant microbial fuel cell (PMFC) is an emerging technology which can produce electricity via living plants. PMFC is sustainable because it is renewable, has a clean conversion without emissions and has no competition for arable land or nature. PMFCs can also be implemented in rice paddy fields combining food and electricity production and so circumventing the competition with food production.
This idea can build the development of cheap manufacturing energy technology, affordable and based on local wisdom i.e. rice plants, as major food commodities. If e-paddy applied on a large scale it can provide environmentally friendly and sustainable green energy for the future. Thus thousands of villages that are currently not yet been electricity, can independently meet its electricity through the e-paddy project.
References
Bangka Pos. 2016. 2519 Desa di Indonesia Gelap, Belum Teraliri Listrik. Retrieved from http://bangka.tribunnews.com/2016/02/05/2519-desa-di-indonesia-gelap-belum-teraliri-listrik
B T B Strik, D.P. et al., 2008. Short Communication Green electricity production with living plants and bacteria in a fuel cell. International Journal of Energy Research,32, pp.870–876.
De Schamphelaire L, et al. 2008. Microbial fuel cells generating electricity from rhizodeposits of rice plants. Environ Sci Technol ;42:3053–8.