World's second-largest waste-to-energy plant nears completion in Hanoi

The world's second-largest waste-to-energy plant in Soc Son District, Hanoi, is nearing completion.

The world's second-largest waste-to-energy plant in Soc Son District, Hanoi, is nearing completion.

The Soc Son Waste-to-Energy Plant project belongs to the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex which was expected to deal with 90 percent of waste at the city's biggest landfill of Nam Son.

The project was approved in late 2017 with a total investment of VND7 trillion (USD303 million). Once completed, it will be the largest in Vietnam and the second largest in the world with a capacity of handling 4,000 tonnes of dry solid waste per day.

Speaking with Dantri/Dtinews on November 28, Nguyen Thi Hong Van, a spokesperson for the Thien Y Environmental Energy JSC which is carrying out the plant construction, said that they have completed 90 percent of the project.

"The completion date has been delayed by five months due to the Covid-19 pandemic which had affected our workforce," she said.

It is expected that the plant will be put into operation for the first phase in January 2022 with a daily capacity of 800 tonnes of dry solid waste. In its third phase scheduled for late March, 2022, the plant will operate at its full capacity of treating 4,000 tonnes of waste a day, or two-thirds of the city’s waste, and producing 75 MW of electricity an hour using European technology.

At present, Hanoi has two landfills, Xuan Son in Son Tay Town and Nam Son in Soc Son District, which are all treating waste by burying. Both of these landfills have constantly operated beyond their capacity and are now already overloaded.