Bioenergy on commercial farms

A partnership to promote green recovery in Vietnam by scaling up sustainable electricity generation at large and medium-sized pig farms using state-of-the-art equipment. The partnership uses on-site biogas to generate energy benefiting the climate and reducing costs for farmers.

Context

The livestock sector in Vietnam accounts for 28% of agriculture and is one of the fastest growing agricultural subsectors, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also highly polluting, emitting 15 million tons of CO2 annually into the atmosphere. Commercial farms will be confronted with strict discharge, emission, and bio-security regulations in the coming decade. In addition, the energy component of farms’ operational costs will increase markedly.

About the initiative

This initiative aims to scale up an existing biogas-to-bioenergy model in Vietnam to provide medium and large pig farms with cheap, secure and sustainable energy. Currently, there are over 8,500 large and medium-sized commercial pig farms in Vietnam with biogas digesters for manure treatment. Almost all the biogas plants produce biogas well above the demand for cooking. As a result, biogas is being either flared or released into the atmosphere without burning increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

E-GREEN’s biogas-to-electricity solution will generate electricity for internal use and sale back into the national electricity grid reducing energy costs for farms by 20 – 30%. The reduced emissions will be linked to international carbon markets providing a revenue stream for E-GREEN.

The partners in this initiative have an existing relationship and experience commercialising the model in 2020 and early 2021. Learnings from these installations have been incorporated into the business model. Installing biogas generators for electricity is not a well-known or popular product in Vietnam but the potential is there. The partnership with the Australian Government enables E-GREEN to raise awareness of the product and purchase equipment upfront, accelerating the scale-up.

The initiative will implement the following strategies to promote women in business:

• Prioritising women-led farms and supporting their development.
• Equal ownership of Biogas generation systems to improve decision making in the home.
• Flexible working conditions within the workplace, including ethical hiring standards.
• Inclusive training tailor-made to women to increase employability

Key contributions from partners

• E-GREEN is contributing its skills to install biogas-electricity generation systems and set up ESCO business models that allow farmers to generate their own electricity.
• SNV Netherlands Development Organisation is assisting E-GREEN with marketing material, products quality control, gender mainstreaming business. SNV is responsible for implementation of emission reduction activities under the carbon project.
• Australian Government is contributing catalytic funding and can offer gender expertise to strengthen social and commercial impacts, connection to an extensive network, capability building on how to capture report social impact, safeguards standards and practices, national and global recognition.
• Nexus for Development is developing the carbon project component of the partnership which will connect the on the ground activities to international carbon markets to drive revenue to the partnership.
• HD Bank is providing financing to pig farmers who are interested in taking over/owning the biogas electricity generation system and promoting green-environment projects in Viet Nam.

Hear from our partners

“This partnership is an excellent opportunity to showcase the global and local impacts that can be achieved when the right consortium aligns their goals to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Nexus is excited to develop a new carbon project from these efforts to support the ongoing benefits that this project is expected to provide in the coming years to both the people of Vietnam and the global climate.” Clarisse Kehler Siebert – Executive Director – Nexus for Development

“BPP provides an unique support to private sector in Vietnam on promoting green and sustainable livestock production through stimulating green investment and carbon financing. BeCA will test out ESCO model, an effective instrument in promoting clean energy over three-year project lifetime. SNV will play the coordination role among Partnership to ensure project will achieve both economic and social impacts.” SNV

This partnership was selected through the BPP’s Vietnam 2020 Call for Green Recovery Partnerships.