PrimeAsia Vietnam switches to biomass as the source of its steam
05/10/2012
PrimeAsia Vietnam (PAV) used to consume more around 1.8 million litres of heavy oil a year to produce the steam it uses for making leather there. But since September 1, it has used a biomass boiler instead of the heavy oil boilers that were in use before and 100% of the steam that the tannery has used since then has come from the new source.
Rice husks are collected from rice processing factories across Vietnam and turned into rice husk pellets in a processing plant near Ho Chi Minh City. The husks provide significant environmental benefits compared to the burning of heavy oil, PAV has pointed out. It has calculated that the new set-up gives it the potential to reduce carbon emissions from this part of its operation by around 98%.
A hot water system already in place at PAV uses solar energy and this, combined with the new biomass steam boiler, means 70% of the energy the tannery consumers is renewable.
Earlier this year, PrimeAsia set itself the goal of reducing the group’s energy, water and waste footprint by 30% by 2017 and it has put in place a system for calculating the footprint of each of the types of leather it manufactures.
PAV was named Tannery of the Year for Asia excluding China in 2010. The group’s tannery in China is a finalist for that region in the third Tannery of the Year programme, which will conclude in March 2013.
Share this story:
