Energy potential from the anaerobic digestion of food waste in municipal solid waste stream of urban areas in Vietnam

Abstract Anaerobic digestion (AD) was introduced in Vietnam more than 10 years ago, but at a small scale to deal with agricultural wastes, manure, etc. Despite its many advantages, AD does not yet make a significant contribution to resolving Vietnams urban waste issues due to a lack of information, data and experience. This paper, using an energy model of food waste digestion, provides a usable source of information regarding energy potential of food waste generated from urban areas in Vietnam in forms of electricity, heat, and upgraded biogas under two different scenarios. Results show that if food waste is separated from the municipal solid waste (MSW) stream and sent to AD plants, total available energy equivalent each day is about 19, 20 and 45 GWh in 2015, 2020, and 2025, respectively. This could contribute between 2.4 and 4.1 % of the electricity demand of Vietnam, as well as double this amount of energy in the form of heat. Alternatively, upgraded biogas could contribute approximately 2.2–4.7 % of fuel consumption for transportation. This suggests AD is a promising method to treat MSW in cities, especially when considering the problematic aspects of other current waste disposal methods such as: landfilling, composting and, incineration.