Japanese renewable power developer Erex has started to build a second wood pellet production plant in Tuyen Quang prefecture, northern Vietnam. The company expects to complete construction between September 2024 and March 2025.
Erex will invest a total of $20.4mn in this plant. The plant will process unused residual woody biomass, such as wood chips and berks, with pellet output capacity of 150,000 t/yr. The company is considering selling wood pellets to both Vietnamese and Japanese power generation plants.
Erex has started construction of its first 150,000 t/yr wood pellet production plant in Yen Bai prefecture, northern Vietnam, targeting completion in September 2024.
Erex has promoted biomass use in Vietnam by helping local power utility Vinacomin Power in converting its coal-fired plants into biomass-fired and biomass co-fired plants. Erex plans to manufacture 5mn t/yr of wood pellets in Vietnam by 2030 by using sorghum. Erex also acquired a 51pc stake in Hau Giang Bio Energy in 2021 to build the 20MW Hau Giang biomass power plant in South Vietnam’s Hau Giang province. The plant started construction in September 2022, and is expected to complete construction by the end of October 2024, with commercial operations scheduled for December 2024, according to Erex.
Erex plans to trial biomass co-firing at Vinacomin Power’s 110MW Na Duong coal-fired power generation plant in December. This trial will be held for around a month, utilising a total of 6,000t of wood chips. The company originally planned to start the trial in August, but it was forced to postpone the schedule because it needed more time for preparation.