Generating electricity from waste, a breakthrough on way to development

In an effort to build a circular economic ecosystem, today (January 12), Binh Duong Water - Environment Corporation (Biwase) officially operates a 5MW waste-to-energy plant. Biwase hopes that this will be an important project in using renewable energy sources for the goal of developing a "circular economy", joining forces with Binh Duong to pursue the set goal of green growth and sustainable development.

Processing process perfected

Currently, facing the challenges of climate change, the world is focusing on mobilizing and calling on businesses around the world to make stronger commitments in using renewable energy such as solar power, wind power and biomass power from waste treatment. With foresight, Biwase has taken advantage of and promoted ODA capital to focus on perfecting waste treatment and recycling technology. Particularly, the company has paid attention to investing and mastering technology to thoroughly treat waste, especially develop biomass power sources from collecting methane gas, burning waste that cannot be recycled properly and taking advantage of heat sources to generate electricity.

This is Biwase’s system of equipment and machinery taking advantage of heat from burning waste to generate electricity with a capacity of 5MW

Ngo Chi Thang, Director of Biwase Waste Treatment Branch said that as the rate of population increases, the amount of waste will also increase. Biwase receives and processes about 2,350 tons of household waste every day. To avoid overload, Biwase always builds contingency plans to proactively increase waste receiving and processing capacity.

“Biwase has continuously made efforts from studying in other countries, accessing popular technologies to apply and take advantage of the heat source of the trash incinerator with the daily capacity of 200 tons. Biwase has also spent VND 835 billion on investing in Binh Duong Waste Treatment Complex’s project to increase waste treatment capacity for the phase 4 with 2 main components. Biwase's officials and employees are determined to make the most of energy resources to regenerate and reuse in the production process. The project not only brings economic benefits, but also joins hands with the province in achieving the goal of green growth and sustainable development in association with environmental protection", Mr. Thang shared.

The project includes increasing the capacity of receiving and classifying waste for organic fertilizer to 840 tons per day. Its incinerator combined with electricity generation has a burning capacity of 200 tons per day, with the power generation capacity of 5MW. In the first phase, the power source will be generated and consumed within the factory under a circulatory process. According to calculations, the amount of electricity from two generator sets utilizing methane gas and heat from the incinerator will meet about 80% of the electricity demand for production activities at the Binh Duong Waste Treatment Complex.

In the joy and excitement of the first days of the new year 2024, Nguyen Van Thien, CEO of Biwase shared the concern of Biwase leaders, which is to master technology, able to well manage and effectively exploit the operation of the generator set. This concern, especially in terms of human resources, has been quickly resolved by Biwase since preparing for investing. Therefore, all technologies are mastered, learned, researched, designed and manufactured by Biwase engineers, based on today's advanced and popular technologies. Notably, many pieces of equipment have been researched and manufactured by Biwase to ensure standards that are equivalent to imported products, thereby helping greatly reduce investment costs for the project.

Do not bury waste

With the assigned mission of collecting, transporting and treating waste, up to now, Biwase has been appreciated as one of the country’s top localities in the waste treatment technology process by experts in this field. Notably, August 1, 2023 marked an important milestone after 8 years of operating under the joint stock company model and no landfilling of waste has been absolutely implemented by Biwase. The success has brought the province to "early finish" with many important targets under the Decision No. 07/QD-TTg dated January 6, 2015 on "Solid waste management planning in the Dong Nai river basin until 2030”.

Binh Duong has become the first province among the country’s 11 localities completing the criterion of not burying waste in the Dong Nai river basin. In addition, all 9 districts, towns and cities of the province have developed waste collection and transportation systems for proper treatment at Binh Duong Waste Treatment Complex. It can be affirmed that stopping burying waste is extremely important to gradually close unsanitary and overloaded solid waste landfills, ensuring environmental pollution and sustainable development towards synchronous construction of solid waste treatment facilities at inter-provincial and provincial levels, collection and transportation systems in line with each locality’s socio-economic conditions.

Mr. Thien further shared that in the coming time, Biwase will pursue the goal of building an ecosystem, bringing renewable energy into real life and production, contributing to the goal of green growth and sustainable development set by the province. In the future, with the possibility of increasing waste volume, the power plant that takes advantage of the heat source from Biwase's trash incinerator can increase its combustion capacity, thereby increasing the power generation capacity to supply power for the production process at the unit as well as being able to connect to the national power grid. That process not only brings economic value, but also positively contributes to environmental protection, bringing renewable energy sources into production for businesses, thereby creating green products for foreign markets with strict requirements in the field of environmental protection.

Reported by Minh Duy-Translated by Kim Tin