PrimeAsia Vietnam switch to biomass energy
4 October 2012PrimeAsia Leather Co. Vietnam (PAV) have announced the burning of rice husk biomass, producing 100% of the steam at the tannery as of September 1, 2012. The biomass boiler replaced the usage of heavy oil boilers. The rice husks are collected from rice processing factories in Vietnam and turned into rice husk pellets in a processing plant near Ho Chi Minh City.
Rice husks provide significant environmental benefits when compared to the burning of heavy oil. Before burning rice husks PAV burned over 150,000 litres of heavy oil per month for steam, which equates to around 1.8 million litres annually. The CO2e reduction potential of switching from burning heavy oil to rice husks is 98%.
70% of PAV’s energy is renewable when the amount of energy from PAV’s solar hot water system and biomass steam boiler are combined. In 2012, PrimeAsia set the goal to reduce the company’s overall energy, water, and waste footprint per square foot of leather by 30% in 5 years. PrimeAsia is also committed to decreasing the carbon footprint of their leather products. Switching to biomass steam production demonstrates PrimeAsia’s commitment to decrease dependence on heavy oil, switch to renewable sources of energy, and minimise the carbon footprint of PrimeAsia manufactured leather.
