The project was launched at a conference on Tuesday. — VNS Photo Thu Trang

THÁI NGUYÊN — A project on biomass gasification technology was launched on Tuesday in Thái Nguyên Province.

The project named BEST, providing sustainable energy solutions for agricultural processing and waste management in rural areas of Việt Nam, was launched by Oxfam in Việt Nam, the Centre for Creativity and Sustainable Study and Consultancy (CCS) and other partners.

Currently, most small and medium enterprises (SME) and households use coal and firewood in processing agricultural products. This method causes environmental pollution and harms people's health, as well as increases production costs and reduces product quality.

A large number of agro-forestry by-products are being treated as waste, which are then disposed or burned. 

Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2017 showed that the agricultural production industry in Việt Nam annually generated about 118 million tonnes of agricultural waste, and only 11 per cent of it is used.

With the appropriate biomass energy technology, those by-products can be turned into biomass fuel for heat generation to meet the needs of agricultural production households and supply cleaner, cheaper energy sources, and at the same time contribute to reducing rural pollution.

Currently, the Vietnamese market has some models of biomass energy equipment, but no model widely adopted by SMEs.

The BEST project, sponsored by the European Union, aims to address core issues through the promotion of small-scale biochemical technology to accommodate the financial and technological capabilities of the business, and develop local support service systems. The project utilises volumetric continuous biomass gasification (VCBG). From there, the model is feasible both in terms of technology and allowing the support system to become visible and widely adopted.

Vũ Thị Quỳnh Hoa, country deputy director of Oxfam in Việt Nam, said the BEST project would contribute to achieving global goals of access to sustainable energy, and sustainable growth of the green economy.

Specifically, the application of VCBG technology would reduce production pollution to a low level, improve energy efficiency, thereby promoting sustainable production, she said.

Koen Duchateau, head of Cooperation for the European Union Delegation in Việt Nam, said the European Union had been assisting Việt Nam in the transformation towards renewable energy and green energy at an appropriate cost.

In fact, Việt Nam had not fully exploited its real potential in clean energy production from biomass. The BEST project objectives were well suited to addressing this problem, he said.

The project will be implemented in four years from 2020 to 2024 in Thái Nguyên, Lào Cai, Tuyên Quang and Yên Bái.

The project will work with 2,500 agricultural processing households, 100 mechanical enterprises and 400 suppliers of biomass. Approximately 1.2 million people, with half of them women, will benefit in the four provinces.

The total budget of the project is 3,041,813 euros (US$3.6 million), of which the European Union funds 80 per cent, Oxfam in Việt Nam and CCS contribute the remaining 20 per cent ​​of the budget. — VNS