10048505VIETNAMESE-FARM-CLEAN-MICROGRIDClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKThe project named as CLEANGRID (VIETNAMESE-FARM-CLEAN-MICROGRID) studies feasibility of a microgrid system with clean/renewable energy sources including PV, treated biogas generator, and secondary life battery as energy storage for Vietnamese agriculture (pig) farm. The project target is to provide an affordable, reliable, and clean energy solution to Vietnamese agriculture farm whilst mitigate the environmental pollution from farm waste and unreliable/off-grid power supply with good return of investment. The beneficiaries of the project are both the farm workforces/owner and the neighbor community where often locates in poor rural/remote/distant area with unreliable/off-grid power supply. With low-cost and mobile energy for basic appliances such as lighting, cooking, water-pump, communication, internet access, the project will address both gender and social inclusion as well as encourage equality. Livestock sector plays an important role in Vietnamese agriculture with 73% meat production is pork (26.7milion pig-head for 2014) and 70% pig-head (60% pork product) are from smallholder/householder farms (WB report). To mitigate this environmental issue from animal waste, waste process via anaerobic digestion for biogas generation and then using on cooking and power generation is often considered. Therefore, an affordable purification biogas process to improve the in-site cooking and power generation efficiency as well as reducing erosion issue on appliances is one major part of the project. The treatment is based on waste material (bentonite) from Vietnamese local mining and therefore, a cost-effective approach. The cooking via biogas could change the wood cooking behavior in the distant area leading to reduction of pollution/deforestation. As a tropical country, Vietnam has high-potential on solar power. However, for any microgrid system, energy storage is highly expensive. For cost-effective, energy storage system using secondary life battery from electric bike/vehicle in Vietnamese market is another topic of interests of the project. Also, a microgrid control system for maximizing energy conversion efficiency and minimizing energy consumption is essential. The battery and DC/AC inverter modules are designed and developed in such a way that it is detachable as a mobile module for distant/remote area where electricity system is unavailable for community service such as water-pump. To facilitate the scale-up of the microgrid system concept with different power levels and more renewable energy power integration such as biomass power generation, wind-turbine..., an energy conversion loss model for microgrid system is developed and validated via in-lab test. Also, a business model including investment cost, performance cost, return on investment, and potential CO2 capture/reduction is developed.