Exploiting renewable energy potential
Thứ bảy, 20/10/2012 - 10:23
Dak Lak Province holds huge potential for renewable energy development. It targets to make renewable energy account for 25 percent of all energy used in the province in 2015.
Dak Lak Province holds huge potential for renewable energy development. It targets to make renewable energy account for 25 percent of all energy used in the province in 2015.
The Central Highlands province of Dak Lak doesn't have busy cities or vast rice fields but does possess major potential for developing renewable energy from wind, solar energy and biomass.
Dak Lak Province Department of Industry and Trade's statistics show that as of August the province put into use 12 small hydropower plants with a combined capacity of 73.14MW. Three small to medium-sized hydropower projects are under construction in Dak Lak, while another eight similar projects are implementing procedures to begin construction. Existing hydropower plants contribute to easing 110kV intermediate transformer station overloading, assuring stable power supplies throughout the province.
Apart from hydropower potential, Dak Lak has the potential for solar power development. In 2002, a project experimenting with producing and providing solar power for people's daily lives was kicked off in Cham Hamlet in Ea H'leo District, Dak Lak Province under a cooperative program between the NRW Company from Germany and Solarlab of the Ministry of Science and Technology. This is the first hamlet in Vietnam to see all member households having access to solar power. Each of the 180 households in the hamlet now accesses a 50Wp power source. Dak Lak Province People's Committee submitted a large-scale solar battery installation project to the Committee for Ethnic Minorities Affairs for approval. If this project is approved and implemented in the province, it will provide about 100kWh of solar power to every household in 33 hamlets in Lak, Ea Kar, M'drak and Krong Nang districts.
An infrastructure investment and urban business joint stock company from Hanoi installed two wind measuring towers in Ea Khal Commune in Ea H'leo District to exploit the wind power potential in Dak Lak. The Binh Thuan wind power joint stock company from Binh Thuan Province also installed a wind measuring tower in the Thanh Vu tapioca starch factory in Ea H'leo Commune. The wind power development potential in Dak Lak remains huge.
According to the provincial agriculture extension center, as of 2010 Dak Lak trained 21 biogas plant technicians and construction workers within the framework of the national biogas program for the livestock breeding sector. Apart from 3,947 biogas plants funded by the national biogas project, provincial residents constructed 6,000 biogas plants with their own capital or loans, taking the total number of biogas plants in the province to more than 10,000. In 2009, the Dak Lak tapioca starch factory put into use a biogas plant system to provide energy for drying all of the company's tapioca starch.
Agricultural land accounts for 91.8 percent of Dak Lak's total area. Firewood, bagasse, wood scraps, sawdust and agricultural byproducts in the province could be used to create biomass energy. However, this source of energy had not been exploited thoroughly. In the province, only the 333 sugarcane and sugar joint stock company procured a new production line to increase its capacity to 2,500 tonnes of sugarcane per day. Apart from production expansion, the company invested in a new energy system run with a 60 tonnes per hour steam boiler and a 3,000kW turbine and generator group to increase its factory's electricity generation capacity to 4.5MW.
According to the Energy Conservation Center of Ho Chi Minh City (ECC HCMC), the consultant establishing the 'Evaluating actual situation and constructing an energy efficiency and conservation program in Dak Lak Province for the 2011-2015 period and a vision to 2020' project, the renewable energy potential in Dak Lak remains large. The province targets to make renewable energy account for about 25 percent of all energy used in the province in 2015.
By LM