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Economics and perception of small-scale biogas plant benefits installed among peri-urban and rural areas in central Vietnam

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Abstract

The implementation of biogas plants in Southeast Asia brings many benefits to the households through socio-economic, environmental and health improvements. This paper expands the knowledge on essential aspects of biogas implementation such as socio-economic impact, post-adaptation perception and cultural habits related to traditional fuel use, focusing on differences in household economics and livelihood diversity at the peri-urban–rural continuum. A questionnaire survey was conducted from July to September in Thua Thien Hue Province central Vietnam, among rural (n=55) and peri-urban (n=63) households owning a biogas plant of various ages. Our results show that technical problems with biogas plants were influenced by the age of the biogas plant and the owners’ experience with the management of the plant. The reduction of costs on energy was the main reason for households to install a biogas plant. However, households with biogas plants in the rural area experienced lower profitability and an almost two-times longer pay-back period than those situated near cities (internal rate of return equals 20.20% and 48.16%, respectively). Furthermore, our study shows that biogas plant installation reduces firewood consumption, particularly in peri-urban areas. The saved time initially needed for dung management or firewood collection/management, households members used predominantly for leisure and household chores, less on income-generating activities. Our study concludes that rural areas face operational problems more frequently, which, together with lower economic efficiency, negatively affect the successful implementation of biogas plants in remote areas of central Vietnam.

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CRediT author statement

Conceptualisation: Hynek Roubík and Vladimír Verner; methodology: Hynek Roubík and Vladimír Verner; formal analysis: Vladimír Verner; validation: Jana Mazancová, Hynek Roubík; investigation: Vladimír Verner, Hynek Roubík, Marek Jelínek, Jana Mazancová, Le Dinh Phung, Dinh Vand Dung, Jan Banout; writing—original draft: Hynek Roubík and Vladimír Verner; writing—review and editing: Hynek Roubík, Vladimír Verner, Marek Jelínek, Jana Mazancová, Le Dinh Phung, Dinh Vand Dung, Jan Banout; resources and funding acquisition: Jan Banout, Vladimír Verner, Jana Mazancová and Hynek Roubík; project administration: Jana Mazancová; visualisation: Vladimír Verner; supervision: Hynek Roubík.

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Internal Grant Agency of the Czech University Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences [20213111]. The authors also acknowledge the partial support of Hue University under the Core Research Program, Grant No. NCM.DHH.2018.04.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

    Vladimir Verner, Jana Mazancová, Marek Jelínek, Jan Banout & Hynek Roubík

  2. University of Agriculture and Forestry, Hue University, Hue City, Vietnam

    Le Dinh Phung & Dinh Van Dung

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  1. Vladimir Verner
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Correspondence to Hynek Roubík.

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Highlights

• Peri-urban households spend more time on wood collection compared to rural.

• Households with longer experience encounter fewer operational problems.

• Operational problems are more frequent in rural than in peri-urban households.

• Use of biogas results in saving two extra hours daily per household.

• In peri-urban areas, investment into biogas results in higher profitability and shorter return rates.

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Verner, V., Mazancová, J., Jelínek, M. et al. Economics and perception of small-scale biogas plant benefits installed among peri-urban and rural areas in central Vietnam. Biomass Conv. Bioref. 13, 11959–11971 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-021-02122-4

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