To promote the sustainable use of rice husks as an energy resource, GIZ signed an agreement with Sanofi Viet Nam on 23 September 2021 to advise on the ‘Rice is the New Green’ (RING) initiative for conversion of industrial boilers to run on biomass at the multinational healthcare company’s local factories, thus reducing climate impacts and air pollution in Viet Nam.
As part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI), GIZ’s ‘Climate Protection through Sustainable Bioenergy Markets in Viet Nam’ (BEM) project will help Sanofi successfully convert existing diesel-fueled boilers to rice husk-fired technology. The RING project is expected to reduce 2.300 tons of CO2 annually, decrease the cost of industrial steam by 40% and demonstrate feasibility to replace diesel fuel with 100% rice husk biomass energy in production processes.
The BEM project will evaluate the RING project’s technical and economic feasibility, including the project’s potential scale and costs, energy cost savings, potential, productive use of the rice husk combustion byproduct such as bio-silica, and sustainable business models promoting a rice husk circular economy in Viet Nam.
At the ceremony, Mr. Nathan Moore – Director of the BEM project – said, “Rice is the New Green is a meaningful and creative project. Not only pioneering the use of clean energy in production, this project also exploits and utilizes a great deal of rice husk resource which is quite abundant in Viet Nam. This absolutely matches the objective of GIZ’s BEM project. With the professional support from the BEM project and great effort of Sanofi, this project is expected to bring fruitful contributions to the growth of the green industry ecosystem in Viet Nam in the near future.”
GIZ and the Electricity and Renewable Energy Authority (EREA) of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) have jointly implemented the BEM project since 2019. The project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
For more information about the BEM project, please see here.
For further information, please contact Nathan Moore – BEM’s Project Director.
