• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 10 / 08 / 2011

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Vietnam, which established a comprehensive infrastructure at home with 2 million micro-size and thousands of larger digesters, has provided Cuba with biogas know-how since 2003, and the two generators are part of a larger program, Duan Thi Hai, an engineer with the Vietnamese group told the conference. Vietnam has already donated at least four biogas generators in Las Tunas and Matanzas province, according to local newspaper Tiempo 21.

The Hanoi-based Biogas Technology Center is setting up two midsize biogas generators in Cuba, official news agency ACN reported.

Larger-scale biogas technology allows to generate electricity with methane from agricultural waste. In 2010, biogas plants helped Cuba save the equivalent of 2,000 tons of oil. The fossil fuel savings will allow Cuba to sell tradable CO2 certificates worth millions of dollars per year.

The two 300-cubic meter plants donated by Vietnam are expected to begin operating before the end of the year. They will be sufficient to provide electricity for a small community, a Cuban expert with Biomas Cuba said during an alternative-energy conference in Las Tunas. The ACN report didn’t say where the two generators are being built.

Vietnam, which established a comprehensive infrastructure at home with 2 million micro-size and thousands of larger digesters, has provided Cuba with biogas know-how since 2003, and the two generators are part of a larger program, Duan Thi Hai, an engineer with the Vietnamese group told the conference. Vietnam has already donated at least four biogas generators in Las Tunas and Matanzas province, according to local newspaper Tiempo 21.

In a project funded by German development aid agency DFG, the Cuban sugar ministry has worked with a German company, Bielefeld-based Biogas Nord GmbH, to set up pilot project biogas plant in 2004 at a sugar mill in Ciego de Ávila province. The methane produced by the biogas plants is used to power the sugar mill’s boiler room. However, no new projects have emerged since for Biogas Nord.

Thirty-one biogas generators are up and running in Las Tunas province, according to Tiempo 21. A dozen biogas plants are operating in Holguín province, according to Granma, and four more biogas plants are under construction there. A total of 19 plants, possibly 21, could be completed by the end of this year, a utility official with the Holguín power company said during the conference. Most of the plants are located at the rural town of Aguas Claras in the eastern province.

Meanwhile, a Holguín power company official said during the conference that another expansion of the Gibara wind farm is being planned. Chinese wind generator manufacturer Goldwind was the supplier for a six-turbine expansion that has just been completed.

Source: http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/10/07/cuba-working-with-vietnam-on-biogas/