ACHIEVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ORIENTATION OF BIOMASS IN VIETNAM

Minh Phap Vu; Bao Hung Bui Institute of Energy Science (IES) - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) A9 - 18 - Hoang Quoc Viet - Hanoi E-mail: phaproma@gmail.com

Abstract
Renewable energy is clean energy sources, in which many sources have enormous potential. The exploitation and usage of renewable energy for protection of the Earth's environment and supplement, gradually replacement of fossil energy resources as a technology scientific task prioritized in many countries on the world. The article introduces mainly the biomass energy development in Vietnam as well as the achievements in the field of biogas exploitation of Institute of Energy Science in the recent years. Vietnam is an agricultural country, so Vietnam has large potential for biomass energy development. The main types of biomass in Vietnam including firewood, waste from agricultural crops, livestock waste, urban waste and other organic wastes. According to the evaluation of Ministry of Industry and Trade, the biomass potential of Vietnam is about 43-46 million TOE/year, of which about 60% of energy from wood, and 40% of energy from agricultural byproducts. Exploitation technologies of biomass in Vietnam include traditional technology providing heat from firewood for rural area and advanced technology producing ethanol, clean coal, biogas, and electricity. In recent years, the renewable energy research group at Institute of Energy Science - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology also had some significant research achievements in the field of exploitation and application of biogas. Advanced anaerobic digestion in family scale of Institute of Energy Science has achieved the advantages of improving quality, performance, working life, construction, installation, usage and lower cost. In 2012, Institute of Energy Science collaborated with Institute of Biotechnology - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology implementing research project Researching biotechnology application of treatment of processed waste and vegetable waste to reduce environmental pollution and generate biogas belong to national key program on application of biotechnology in agriculture and rural development. This is the first research project evaluating production ability of biogas from fruit and vegetable waste in Vietnam. The success of the project will solve environmental pollution problems and produce fuel for cogeneration equipment at fruit and vegetable processing plants and concentrated fruit and vegetable production areas. Keywords: biomass, biogas, advanced anaerobic digestion, fruit and vegetable waste

I. Potential of biomass in Vietnam Vietnam has the large potential of biomass resource which distributed over different ecological zones in the country, and it can be exploited for use of electricity. It is estimated about 1.6 million tons of straw and 2.8 million tons of bagasse can be used for electricity production, and the large amount of wood waste such as sawdust, wood shavings at hundreds of plants and forest products processing enterprises could also consider exploiting. The real potential of biomass can be exploited for power production and energy cogeneration is about 230-305 MW as follows: Table 1. Potential of biomass for power production and energy cogeneration [1] Type of biomass Theory potential (1000 tons) Rice husk Bagasse Wood waste 7.158 4.419 800 Total + Biogas from agriculture waste Total of theory potential of biogas equivalent installed capacity of 1.725 MW. The main biogas resources are livestock waste and crop byproduct. In there, amount of biogas from crop byproducts is about 57.1%. But in fact, the source of waste can be collected to produce biogas is not much, livestock waste is the biogas resource which exploited mainly, simple technology is small scale generator having the capacity from 5-10 kW in each household, or large-scale generator 10 kW to several hundred kW in farms. Table 2. Potential of biogas [1] No 1 2 Type Livestock waste Crop byproduct Total + Biogas from landfill Biogas production potential from landfill mainly based on organic waste and municipal sludge. In 2007, the total amount of waste in whole country was 15 million tons, the household waste was about 85% equivalent to 12.8 million tons/year mainly in urban areas and cities. The growth rate of waste around 10-16% /year. Biogas output/year (1000 m3) 6.169.863 8.196.293 14.366.156 Power generation potential (MWh) 3.701.918 4.917.776 8.619.694 Real potential (1000 tons) 1.615 2.784 80 Capacity (MW) 75-100 150-200 5 230-305

Table 3. Prediction of waste upto 2030 [1] Area Whole country Urban Rural area 2007 12.800 6.400 6.400 2010 14.080 7.040 7.040 2015 15.488 7.774 7.774 2020 17.037 8.518 8.518 2025 18.740 9.370 9.370 2030 20.615 10.307 10.307

II. Development of biomass in Vietnam [2] In Vietnam, renewable energy resource which used most is biomass, mainly for household cooking in rural areas. Exploitation technologies of biomass in Vietnam include traditional technology providing heat from firewood for rural area and advanced technology producing ethanol, clean coal, biogas, and electricity. Today, Vietnam has more than 80 plants using the technology CHP with a total capacity is about 400MW. In there, there is about more than 40% using biomass for producing electricity and steam. The sugar production industry and paper production industry use mainly biomass for energy co-generation. Biogas technology was developed relatively early in Viet Nam. At the present, there are 61 provinces have built about more than 200.000 digesters with the small scale of 10, 20 and 30 m3 and some biogas projects at livestock farms in the large scale of 100-1000 m 3. Some biogas projects from landfill are building in Ho Chi Minh city. Vietnam has also produced ethanol from cassava, sugar cane in domestic with about 6 projects, each project has capacity of about 100 million liters per year. III. Achivement of Institute of Energy Science (IES) in the field of biogas Since 2005, IES has researched small scale advanced anaerobic digestion about improving the structure and materials in accordance with conditions in rural area in Vietnam. In principle, the advanced anaerobic digestion was designed as follows: - The type of digester was continuous fermentation (lower part contained the liquid fermentation matter, upper part stored biogas) having a fixed top. - The body part is a rotating cylindrical shape, the bottom is the sphere frustum shape, and the biogas storage part is hemisphere shape. - Scale of digester is from 5 m3 to 100 m3. - Surge tank is rotating cylindrical shape and it is divided into two distinct parts, small part used for waste storage, it is connected directly to the bottom of the digester so waste residue can be sent automatically out of the digester. - The research team also has built software program to help users in designing the advanced anaerobic digestion (see Figure 1). The high advantage of this anaerobic digestion is destroy scum, automatic anti encrustation and waste residue can be sent automatically out of the digester. Up to now, IES has built more than 100 advanced anaerobic digestions in many areas such as Hanoi city, Namdinh province, Hanam province, Me island - Thanhhoa province

Fig 1. Advanced anaerobic digestion of IES In 2011, a useful solution of IES registered copyright ownership in the Republic of Belarus for the biogas creation device in farm scale. In 2012, IES collaborates with Institute of Bio Technology - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology to implement the national key research project Researching biotechnology application of treatment of processed waste and vegetable waste to reduce environmental pollution and generate biogas in 3 years (2012 - 2014). The main research content as follows : - Researching biotechnology application to convert fruit and vegetable waste to biogas production material. - Design of treatment system of processed waste and vegetable waste to produce biogas. - Research on biogas devices in the large scale such as CHP technology, H 2S filter, CO2 filter, pump This is the first research project evaluating production ability of biogas from fruit and vegetable waste in Vietnam. The success of the project will solve environmental pollution problems and produce fuel for cogeneration equipment at fruit and vegetable processing plants and concentrated fruit and vegetable production areas.

IV. Orientation of biomass development in Vietnam In the near future, Vietnam will focus some main research contents as follows: - Development of biogas project in small scale and farm scale by using advanced technologies. - Research of biogas technology using organic waste, fruit and vegetable waste, algae - Completing thermal power plant using urban waste. - Research of advanced biomass technology such as methane - hydrogen production technology V. Conclusion Vietnam is an agricultural country, so Vietnam has large potential for biomass energy development. The main types of biomass in Vietnam including firewood, waste from agricultural crops, livestock waste, urban waste and other organic wastes. However, Vietnam being in the early stages of development in the field of biomass. One of the most important thing to develop the field of renewable energy in general and the field of biomass in particular is international cooperation. The main contents in cooperations as follows: - Building Renewable Energy law. - Investigation of technical potential of Renewable Energy resources (biomass, solar). - Forming the national science program of Renewable Energy. - Applying technology of Japan for renewable energy market in Vietnam.

REFERENCES [1] National power planning VII - 2011. [2] Nga Thuy Nguyen - IES; Bioenergy for Grid power system of Vietnam; Asia HighTechnology Network for BioHydrogen Workshop; Osaka University; Japan; 2012.