Vietnam Sugarcane and Sugar Association (VSSA) hopes to set up power plants that run on sugarcane by-products.

Pham Quoc Doanh, VSSA’s Chairman, said at the fifth annual International Sugarcane Conference that Viet Nam’s 41 sugar factories annually produced up to 4.5 million tonnes of bargasses, the fibrous remains after the juice is extracted from the cane. He said this could generate up to 1.4 billion kilowatts of electricity per year.

By 2020, Viet Nam will have produced about 20 million tonnes of sugarcane could produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity.

Doanh said that if Viet Nam could manage to process these sugar by-products, they should eventually produce 10 per cent of the national electricity turnover. Countries within the Asia Pacific region, such as Brazil, Thailand or the Philippines, have successfully used bargasse to generate electricity.

Electricity generated by bargasse is a clean alternative source which lessens dependence on thermal power or fossil fuels and help reduce hydro power plant production during the dry season.

Pham Hong Duong, Chairman of TTC Bien Hoa Sugar Corporation, told the conference that the price difference between bargasse based electricity in Viet Nam and Thailand and the Philippines wass the main reason why not many power plants have invested in this form of energy.

According to Duong, the current price for each kilowatt of electricity generated by bargasse in Viet Nam is roughly $0.05, while the same amount costs $0.11 and $0.13 in the Philippines.

The conference, held in Phan Thiet City, was co-organised by the VSSA and TTC Group. — VNS