Community Biogas – a new approach for rural energy.

The cold days at the end of November marked a significant milestone for  the pleasure and happiness glowing on each face, and radiant  smile of people in Hoang Mon village, Nam Cuong commune, Tien Hai district, Thai Binh province.

Finally, after a long time  conducting various activities from researching, surveying and evaluating to designing, constructing and installing with a lot of difficulties and challenges, with the effort of project staff  of Green Innovation and Development Centre (Green ID) as well as enthusiastic support from leaders of  People's Committee in  Nam Cuong commune, people in Hoang Mon village and experts,  the project installing community biogas system in Hoang Mon village has achieved success beyond expectations.

As one of the first models  ever deployed and applied in Viet Nam, community biogas  ran into difficulties in the first steps.  However, with the efforts of stakeholders, after more than 7 months of deployment, gas flame from the pig farm outside the village came to 25 first households in the village, bursting withjoy and happiness of the people as well as the project officers.

The project was designed with a 1,200 meter gas pipeline system  connected from a big scale pig farm in the commune which is nearby Hoang Mon village, with an  air vacuum system, and a safe and automatic valve system. After being installed and put into trial operation, the project has brought about positive initial results with constant gas being provided to 25 households in Hoang Mon village for free. According to biogas experts’ assessment on  potential of farm, with existing systems, it can provide biogas for approximately 100 households in Hoang Mon village in the up-coming  time.

We believe that the success of community biogas model is of great importance not only to the beneficiaries, and local community but also to organization unit  ​​in using effectively available renewable energy to contribute  to solving environmental problems,  form  a basis for the expansion in the future, and  offer livestock farms with practical solutions to better addressing their  environmental problems . Viet Nam is an agricultural country with two major industries   namelyfarming and livestock. Therefore, we can affirm that Viet Nam has great potential  in exploiting and using biogas. Taking advantage of gas from livestock waste has made significant contribution to saving a considerable expenditure for cooking, ensuring  stable gas supply in disaster. The success of this model will form a basis  for expansion in future towards sustainable development.

Author: Nguyen Lan Anh

Translator: Hoang Khanh CHi

Editor: Nguyen Thi Hang