POWER September 2020 - 8

Vietnam Wants More Generation
Capacity, Less Reliance on Coal
Vietnamese officials earlier this year
said they want the country to more than
double its power generation capacity
by 2030, to as much as 130 GW from
the current capacity of about 55 GW.
The Communist Party politburo has said
" ensuring national energy security, and
sufficiently supplying power for fast
and sustainable socio-economic development "
is the backbone of Vietnam's
national energy development strategy.
Officials have said they will seek foreign
and domestic private investment
to help develop new power plants, and
the government also wants to speed
the privatization of state-owned power
companies, as it addresses concerns
about a shortage of available power as
demand increases.
The country today gets about 38% of
its electricity from coal-fired generation,
and has a goal of receiving as much of
20% of its power from renewable resources
by the end of the decade, while
reducing its reliance on coal. Vietnam
also has begun to develop infrastructure
to import as much of 8 billion cubic
meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
annually by 2030, to increase gas-fired
power generation. Wind power is quickly
emerging as a key source of renewable
energy in the Southeast Asian country;
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy
(SGRE) recently closed a deal for its
fourth so-called " nearshore " wind project
in Vietnam. The deal was part of a
double order for the company's SG 5.0145
turbines, with a total of 36 units that
will be used at the 75-MW Tan Thuan
and 90-MW Thai Hoa wind farms. SGRE
also signed operations and maintenance
(O&M) services contracts, for 10 years
and 20 years, respectively, for the two
projects. The two deals also mark the
first-ever cooperation SGRE has concluded
with Power Engineering Consulting
Joint Stock Company 2 of Vietnam
and Pacific Corp., respectively.
Officials from the Vietnam Energy Institute
(VEI), speaking at an internal meeting
in July, said the country could cancel
at least half of its planned new coal-fired
power plant generation capacity this decade.
The VEI is a government-affiliated
research body tasked with drawing up
the nation's next power sector roadmap.
The group at the meeting said Viet8
1.
The Dam Nai project is the first foreignowned
wind power plant in Vietnam. Aboitiz
Power, a Filipino company, bought the 39.4MW
project from Singapore's Armstrong Asset
Management for about $46 million. The
first phase of three wind turbines at Dam Nai
was commissioned in late 2017, and a second
phase of 12 turbines was commissioned in
late 2018. Vietnam is making foreign investment
in its energy infrastructure a priority in
order to rapidly increase its power generation
capacity. Courtesy: The Blue Circle
nam's eighth Power Development Plan,
or PDP8, which will take effect in 2021,
would call for a rapid expansion of renewables
and natural gas in the country. The
group said as many as seven planned coal
projects could be canceled, with another
six postponed past 2030.
The Institute for Energy Economics
and Financial Analysis, along with
the Green Innovation and Development
Centre environmental group, in mid-July
said that with lower prices for renewable
energy, and the challenge of obtaining financing
for coal projects, it was not likely
any of the 13 projects would be revived
once they were withdrawn. " In the next
period, [Vietnam] will not strongly develop
coal power but only proceed with the
development of the projects which are
already listed in the PDP7 and revised
PDP7, " Hoang Quoc Vuong, the country's
vice minister of industry and trade, said
at the meeting. " [We] will no longer develop
new [coal] projects. "
Wind energy is leading the country's
push for renewables (Figure 1).
SGRE in March said it had secured an
order for 25 of the company's 4.5-145
turbines for the 113-MW Hoa Thang 1.2
wind farm, a deal that includes a 10-year
O&M agreement. SGRE already has
built three wind farms in Vietnam, with
seven more under construction.
" We're pleased to see the Siemens
Gamesa 4.X platform gaining a great deal
of traction in Vietnam from the debut for
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our first nearshore project to the recent
largest order and the combined 165 MW
for two deals we are announcing today, "
said Enrique Pedrosa, Chief Regions Officer
of SGRE's Onshore business unit, in a
statement after the Tan Thuan and Thai Hoa
deals were announced in July. " We have
been able to win trust from existing and
many new customers thanks to our product
innovation and a growing local team on
the ground with strong project execution
and servicing capabilities. We are committed
to introducing our latest products and
technology to Vietnam and partnering with
customers to unlock the potential of renewables
in Vietnam and Asia Pacific. "
SGRE has been expanding in the Asia
Pacific region since the 1980s, and has
installed more than 8.4 GW of onshore
turbines in the region. The company also
last year completed the installation of
Taiwan's first offshore wind power project,
a 128-MW facility, and has reached
nearly 2 GW of firm orders in Asia Pacific
for offshore wind projects.
The wind project announced in March
is developed by Hoa Thang Energy JSC,
a special purpose vehicle run by Vietnamese
construction major Trading Construction
Works Organization (WTO). The Hoa
Thang 1.2 wind farm will be built in the
Bac Binh district, Binh Thuan province on
the south-central coast of Vietnam.
The World Bank Group has said Vietnam
offers great potential for wind power development,
with onshore potential capacity
of 24 GW, and 475 GW of offshore capacity
along its coastline of more than 1,860
miles. The country had 487.4 MW of wind
power generation capacity installed at
year-end 2019, and has said it plans to have
more than 11 GW of total wind generation
capacity in operation by 2025.
Modern Energy Management (MEM),
a specialist in developing, building, and
operating investment grade renewable
energy projects, in July announced it
completed its scope of work for Ecotech
Tra Vinh Renewables JSC. That group is a
partnership between Janakuasa Renewables
and Renewable Energy Vietnam
(REV), a joint venture between Climate
Investor One (CI1), the financing facility
managed by Climate Fund Managers
(CFM) along with ST International (STI),
a Korean energy investor. The work is for
the Ecotech 78-MW intertidal wind farm
in Vietnam's Tra Vinh province. MEM provided
overall project management for the
POWER | September 2020
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POWER September 2020

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