Photo: vietbao.vn

A project on producing biogas from waste in Vietnam’s rural areas was granted the Ashden Sustainable Energy award worth 20,000 GBP at a ceremony held in London on July 1.

The project, jointly conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Dutch aid agency SNV was highly valued for its effectiveness and potential benefit.

Launched in 2003, the biogas project aimed to popularise the conversion of waste particularly those discharged by animal farming, to energy via fermentation that produced clean and reliable energy for cooking and heating and reduced health and environmental problems.

The project targets to build 168,000 biogas systems by the end of 2012.

According to Hoang Kim Giao, Head of the MARD’s Husbandry Department , Vietnam currently has 14,000 farmer households, 80 percent of whom involve in husbandry which produces a large quantity of waste.

Between 2003-2009, over 78,000 biogas systems have been installed benefiting more than 390,000 people with carbon dioxide savings of around 167,000 tonnes per year.

Ashden award founder and President Sarah Butler Sloss praised the significance of the project, which helped create a long-lasting system of infrastructural facilities.

Founded in 2001, the Ashden award for sustainable energy encourages clean energy usage, contributing to efforts to cope with climate change and reduce poverty.

Over the last 10 years, the award has helped improve the life of 23 million people over the world and cut carbon dioxide emission to the air by 3 million tonnes every year.

Source: VNA