Abstract—Study examines the raw material management innovation problems of biomass power plants in Thailand. In this study, the bamboo is the raw material being highlighted. In fact, the bamboo has never been utilized in Thailand as raw material for generating electricity of biomass power plant. Moreover, this study will analyze the problems in order to provide solutions to the problems related to the use of bamboo as raw material. The qualitative method was employed in this study. Furthermore, the in-depth interview technique was used for collecting data. The sample in this study comprised two main groups. The first group is the farmers who planted the bamboo, and the second group is the entrepreneurs who established the biomass power plant. The finding indicated that the main problem of farmers who planted the bamboo was the small number of bamboo produced. Generally, the bamboo in Thailand is used in various fields, so the amount of bamboo for producing electricity was not enough. The problems of entrepreneurs who established the biomass power plant were threefold. First, the return on investment in selling electricity to the Provincial Electricity Authority, Thailand (PEA), was low. Second, the transportation cost of raw material as agriculture residues was high. Third, the biomass power plant was not accepted by the community around the plant which was a major problem. As a result, the approaches to solving these problems are that the biomass power plants should set up cooperation between the farmers and the community around the power plant and give the chance to them to participate in the activities of the power plant as the biomass power plant community. Moreover, the community can produce the bamboo in conjunction with farming and sell the bamboo to the biomass power plant. These approaches can increase revenue to the community and reduce those problems.

Index Terms—Bamboo, biomass, innovation, power plant, raw material.

C. Sritong is with Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand (email: charcrit_sritong@hotmail.com). 
A. Kunavongkrit is with The office of the Commission on Agricultural Resource Education, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok, Thailand.

Cite: Charcrit Sritong, Annop Kunavongkrit, and Chotihirun Piumsombun, "A Study of Raw Material Management Innovation Problems in Biomass Power Plants," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 319-322, 2012.