Download the whole proposal here (pdf).

Authors of the proposal: Sunlabob

Summary description:

• Suitable presses will be distributed to interested village entrepreneurs.
• The interested village entrepreneurs will conduct the commercial operations of buying seed, extracting the oil and selling it as fuel.
• The collected data will allow to assess the commercial viability of extracting Jatropha oil in the village, and the most useful equipment that can be rented out to commercial small entrepreneurs in the villages.
• The oil will be bought from the entrepreneurs for test runs of adapted motors, and/or for test-running of small scale refineries (see other Jatropha experiments of LIRE).
• Sunlabob contracts LIRE to conduct this trial. Sunlabob provides coordination and linkages.

Actors:

• Sunlabob personnel
• Experts from PPM
• Staff from TRI and/or NUOL
• Students from abroad and Lao students

General Hypothesis:

• Jatropha seeds can be grown by farmers and profitably sold to rural SMEs for pressing.
• Oil that is suitable for use in adapted motors and/or for further refinement can be extracted by rural SMEs from seeds grown in the villages. The SMEs can profitably sell the oil as fuel.

Setting Hypothesis:

• Oil from Jatropha can operate generator sets that feed into Village Hybrid Grids for electricity off the main grid.

Market Hypothesis:

• The price paid by SMEs to farmers is sufficient to keep the farmers interested to produce, and the price of the oil sold as fuel is either directly competitive with diesel, or is competitive after refinement.
• A rental service for the pressing equipment can be established and operated profitably.

Specific questions to be answered by this effort:

• None

Data Collection:

What data is going to be collected? How will it be collected? Where will it be stored for analysis. To be established when detailed planning starts.

Deliverables

• At least 2 types of presses yield sufficient oil to conduct the experiments for testing adapted motors and refinement.
• A report which validates or rejects the above hypotheses and suggests further experiments.

Location

Where shall this effort take place? Be as specific as possible.
To be established when detailed planning starts

What needs to be organized by LIRE for transport, communications, accommodation, relations to various agencies, etc…

To be established when detailed planning starts

What is supposed to happen by when?

• Timeframe is 1 year
• Schedules to be established when detailed planning starts

Budget for trial itself

What are the costs of the trial/effort itself

To be established when detailed planning starts

Budget for operational costs

What are the costs of all the backup logistics required for the effort to take place

To be established when detailed planning starts

Funding

• Donors (SDC, GTZ)
• Foundations specialized in energy
• Industry in Germany (contributions in kind)

This proposal form is an extract from the paper submitted by Sunlabob to LIRE: “Extracting Jatropha Oil in Lao villages - Assess equipment that allows SMEs in Lao villages to buy Jatropha seed from growers in the village, extract the oil and profitably sell it as motor fuel.  - 10.Oct 06”