Vietnam

A unit of the Japanese electronics group has finished building a 49 MW solar array in Quang Ngai province, in collaboration with Thailand’s Sermsang Power.

Although only four PV plants with a combined capacity of 150 MW were grid connected by mid-April, the Vietnamese government expects another 88 FIT-entitled solar facilities to come online by the end of next month. By Sunday, 34 projects with a combined capacity of 2.2 GW had already arrived on top of the mid-April connections.

The global PV market will probably grow by as much as 25% in 2019, after sagging to a double-digit rate of expansion last year, with annual capacity additions likely to hit 129 GW, IHS Markit says in a new report.

With its feed-in tariff set to expire at the end of June, Vietnam is considering different levels of payment, classified across three irradiation regions and involving four solar technologies. Future payments would range from $0.0659-0.0985/kWh, with the cloudy north in line for the highest tariffs and with the government likely to revise tariffs for new projects every two years.

According to a report published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), key factors such as the low-regulated price of electricity and uncertainty of the creditworthiness of Vietnam’s state-owned utility EVN are making it difficult to develop bankable solar and RE projects. An improved fiscal energy policy is recommended as the only way to provide the local energy sector with long-term capital and competence in conducting green credit appraisal. Furthermore, the report warns that the current 20-year FIT of US$0.0935/kWh for solar projects is too low.

Grimm Power and Xuan Cau began construction on two solar PV plants in the southern province of Tay Ninh.

The Indian-headquartered EPC has set a June 2019 deadline for its plans to install 300 MW of new solar PV capacity in Vietnam, a market that is poised to boom over the next few years.

The Singapore-headquartered renewable energy developer signs agreement to jointly develop large-scale solar farm in Vietnam’s Ninh Thuan province with InfraCo Asia Development Pte.

The German-headquartered EPC has been selected by project owners, BIM Group and AC Energy to begin construction of the solar plant in April in the Ninh Thuan province of the country.

China’s GCL System Integration Technology (GCL-SI) and Vina Solar have started manufacturing PV cells in Vietnam, with annual output estimated at 600 MW. Roughly 330 MW of their total output capacity has been reserved for passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) solar cells.