Green power in Hanoi

The plant is located in Hanoi’s Soc Son district and is being developed by the Urban Environment Company and Hitachi Zosen with support from Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) at a total investment of $22.5 million. NEDO is the sole fund provider for the project.

This will be Vietnam’s first waste-to-power generation plant and NEDO’s first overseas power generation project and it will serve as an example to be followed by cities and provinces nationwide.

It is scheduled to go on-line at the end of 2014 and will treat 75 tonnes of industrial waste daily, 30 per cent of Hanoi’s total. The plant will use Japanese technologies and the energy produced will power up to 4,500 households and the neighbouring industrial park.

Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha said the project was a meaningful early step toward sustainable development.

He also said he hoped the pilot would catch on and become an effective, though small, part of the nation’s power network.

The project comes as concerns mount over power shortages due to rapid urbanisation.

In Southeast Asian countries, there is a mass surplus of industrial waste and disposal areas are few and far between. Generating power from this waste is likely to be popular throughout the region as power demand rises and innovative solutions are needed to avoid environmental destruction. Countries likely to catch on quick are Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, noted NEDO’s website.

Vietnam is calling for investments in waste treatment technology, and is showing particular interest in waste-to-power. But due to the government’s power price cap and a poor regulatory framework, few have made it past the proposal stage.

Last year, Australia’s Trisum International released that it would pour $400 million to build the wast-to-power in Ho Chi Minh City. Meanwhile, the America’s $140 million International Energy and Environment Company which got the license for a waste-to-energy project five years ago still stay on paper.