Vietnam

The US solar company says its production lines in Ohio, Malaysia and Vietnam have thus far been able to carry on operations. The company says measures have been taken to protect its workers at all of its premises.

Longi Solar has dramatically stepped in to take over fellow Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang Yize New Energy Technology, which operates 7 GW of module production capacity and 3 GW of cell facilities in northern Vietnam.

The transition from a feed-in tariff scheme to an auction mechanism may take longer than expected in the Southeast Asian country, as the Ministry of Industry and Trade is considering maintaining FITs of $0.0709/kWh to $0.0769/kWh for projects that secured approval before Nov. 23, 2019, if they come online as scheduled by the end of this year. According to law firm Lexcomm Vietnam, there are currently 3 GW of projects with licenses.

China, Hong Kong and Vietnam are the top three nations exporting batteries to India. Chinese imports were worth $773 million in the last fiscal year with Hong Kong shipping $267 million worth and Vietnam $114 million, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The move, by Taitong Industry Ltd, will come as a fresh blow to the Chinese module manufacturer, which twice failed to go public – in the U.S. and China – and whose project development business suffered a battering in China when Beijing reined in subsidies in 2018.

The generous tariff is considered crucial by the Vietnamese government to maintain high levels of development in the rooftop segment until 2021.

Following its decision to switch from fixed feed-in tariffs to reverse auction bidding for the setting of solar incentives, the Vietnamese government has decided to devote the first two pilot auctions to floating PV. A first procurement exercise, for a project which could reach 100 MW of generation capacity, will be held this year.

The outlook for growth in Vietnam’s renewables sector is positive, writes Daine Loh, research analyst at Fitch Solutions. And the solar segment is one of the key drivers of this impressive growth. Vietnam still has substantial untapped solar power potential. Coupled with an increasingly supportive regulatory environment, and an expected surge in electricity consumption over the next decade, the country’s renewables sector is poised for a new dawn. And this will bring substantial opportunities for investors.

In a newly published policy document, Hanoi has urged regional governments and the country’s state-run utility, EVN, to suspend authorizations for new solar parks until further notice. Around 8.93 GW of utility-scale solar capacity is already approved for development in Vietnam, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

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.