Vietnam

With the publication of Notification No. 402/TB-VPCP on Nov. 22, the Vietnamese government has cemented its transition from feed-in tariffs to auctions, in a clear step away from earlier promises to revive the FIT scheme.

A simple feasibility analysis shows the Mekong River in Cambodia would benefit from floating solar plants coupled with storage, rather than more hydro.

The Tokyo-based renewables developer has successfully launched its second solar investment fund, which will include roughly 216 MW (DC) of solar capacity across five sites in Japan.

The Chinese solar manufacturer has delivered its ultra-high efficiency Cheetah 72 modules for 575 MW of capacity that X-Elio is developing in multiple locations across Spain, in addition to roughly 375 MW for two projects in the Mexican cities of Veracruz and Navojoa.

Analysts at Fitch Solutions have published a report singling out Spain and Brazil as ‘outperformers’ in the global solar market and labelled Vietnam the “market to watch”. The analysts expect surging growth from the Southeast Asian nation to continue in the coming decade.

The Chinese solar manufacturing giant will supply its latest modules to Singapore-based PV developer Hexagon Peak for a utility scale pipeline in Vietnam.

Although the Wiki-solar website ranking only gives a snapshot of PV project engineering, procurement and construction contracts outside China, it is nevertheless a useful indicator of the changing shape of the global solar market.

Da Mi has $37 million for a floating solar project it wants to build at its hydropower plant in Binh Thuan province. If built before 2022, the project will be entitled to a feed-in tariff of $0.0769/kWh – provided a draft FIT scheme being considered by the government is passed into law.

The tariff for rooftop PV will be maintained at $0.0935/kWh but payments for ground-mounted and floating solar could be cut to $0.0709/kWh and $0.0769, respectively. The previous FIT scheme, according to government figures, has driven the deployment of around 5 GW of solar generation capacity.

The global expansion of PV, wind power and other clean energies will see double-digit growth this year as solar continues to lead the pack.