HANOI: The government of Vietnam is building open mechanisms to mobilise private investment in power projects, especially in renewable energy (RE).

       According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), in implementing the Policy of The Party and Government in encouraging and creating favourable conditions for all economic sectors in local energy development, MoIT and other ministries proposed legal frameworks to build incentive mechanisms and encourage the development of RE projects.

       Recently, the MoIT has submitted to the Prime Minister for approval a mechanism to sell electricity from RE projects, such as wind, biomass, and waste-to-electricity and solar power, according to the feed-in tariff for 20 years.

       The capacity of power projects in the form of build-own-transfer (BOT) and independent power producer (IPP), excluding wind power, solar power and small hydropower, that had been put into operation by 2020 was 7,355 megawatt (MW) out of a total 62,250 MW capacity of power sources, accounting for 11.8%.

       Thermal power projects in the form of BOT and IPP are being implemented totalling 27,250 MW.

       For RE sources, as of Dec 31, 2020, there was 16,420 MW of solar power including 8,673 MW of concentrated solar power and 7,755 MW of rooftop solar, 514 MW of wind power, 382.1 MW of biomass power, 9.43 MW of waste-to-power, meaning RE accounts for 25.3% of the total installed capacity.

       MoIT calculated electricity output from RE reached 5.242 billion kilowatt-hour (kWh) and 10,994 billion kWh in 2019 and 2020 respectively, contributing to a significant reduction in high-priced diesel electricity.

       Compared to the actual mobilised oil power data as per Vietnam Electricity’s forecast, diesel electricity has decreased by 2.17 billion kWh in 2019 and 4.2 billion kWh in 2020.

       Hoang Tien Dung, director of MoIT’s Department of Electricity and Renewable Energy, said: “Renewal resources have actively supported the supply of electricity to the north of Vietnam when it lacked power as the load increased in May and June.” — Viet Nam News/ANN