At 24^th of November 2016 a contract has been signed between the Vietnamese end user BIWASE* and the Dutch - Vietnamese Consortium ‘ELIQUO-VEEC’ for the realization of the Project Wastewater Collection and Treatment for Di An, Thuan An and Tan Uyen Towns in Binh Duong Province, Vietnam. This project is supported by the Dutch financing facility for infrastructure development (ORIO), for which a final Grant Agreement between the Vietnamese and Dutch Governments was signed earlier this year.

The project comprises of the entire design, construction and start-up, commissioning and put into operation of a new “green field” wastewater collection system, including a new wastewater treatment plant with the capacity of 15,000 m³/day. At its completion, the project will serve a population of around 145,000 people and 600 small and medium enterprises (SME’s) by the year 2020. The project aims to eliminate the negative human and environmental  impacts caused by lack of sanitation, waterborne diseases and environmental pollution of surface water, which finally effects on the quality of production of clean drinking water. After massive upgrading and expansion of their water supply infrastructure over the past 10 years, BIWASE is now consequent implementing new facilities for sewage collection and treatment in order to facilitate the economic growth of Binh Duong Province a sustainable way.

In 2012, BIWASE applied with help of the Consortium for the support and development of the project under the Dutch ORIO facility. After positive appraisal of the project initiative by the Dutch Government, the Consortium carried out the feasibility studies and basic designs of the project. A final assessment resulted in the commitment of a 35% grant from the ORIO program to partially support the investment value in 2015. The total project investment value is approximately 36 million Euro and the remaining 65% of financing is delivered via the provincial state budget of Binh Duong Province.

By now signing the contract for the implementation stage, the Consortium will ensure the output of the entire project by producing all detailed designs of the network and treatment plant, including tender documents for construction. Furthermore, the Consortium will deliver key equipment components of the new treatment plant in order to meet the strict discharge requirements as per Vietnamese class A standards. Besides that, substantial support for the guidance of installation of supplied equipment, technology transfer and start-up & commissioning of the new treatment works will be included in the Consortium’s scope.

“This project allows ELIQUO to export their decades of outstanding experience on the realization of basic wastewater treatment plants over the world”, said ELIQUO’s MD Rick Langereis. As European main wastewater infrastructure facilities reached a substantial level on coverage of demands, new “green field opportunities” hardly occur in ELIQUO’s European home markets. In these home markets, ELIQUO is nowadays also developing high innovative projects, which are substantially focusing on advanced energy - and nutrient recovery from wastewater. However, gained knowledge from the past about basic wastewater infrastructure is now “revised” and “exported” to developing markets, guided by support mechanisms like ORIO. These mechanisms help ELIQUO to justify if those developing markets, like in Vietnam, remain attractive for future business expansion.

According to Dr. Duong Bac, Chairman & General Director of VEEC, a crucial factor in securing the contract was also the outstanding cooperation between BIWASE and the Consortium so far. Driven by more than a decade of cooperation between individuals of both Consortium partners and their “old customer BIWASE”, understanding in terms of relationship and all critical aspects of the project were laid down as a strong ground under the new contract.

After a technology selection during the feasibility stage of the project, the SBR-technology was selected due to its smaller footprint requirements, lower energy consumption and lower investment costs compared with other traditional activated sludge technologies. The new treatment plant will therefore comprise of head works with a two stage screening for coarse and fine materials, a grit and fat removal stage and a biological treatment section of four SBR reactors of 4,000 m3 each. Prior to the discharge to surface water, final effluent will be treated by UV-disinfection. All produced sludge’s from the activated sludge process will be thickened and dewatered on site prior to a controlled disposal.

After finalization of the detailed designs early 2017 and completion of tendering procedures, construction of the sewage collection network and the waste water treatment plant will start mid-2017. The new wastewater treatment plant is envisaged to receive its first sewage to treat before end-2018.

*  Binh Duong Water – Environment Joint Stock Company

** Vietnam Environmental Engineering and Construction JSC