Vietnam Environmental Technologies Export Market Plan

Chapter 10
Renewable Energy
10.1—Current Trends
Vietnam’s national power company, Electricity of
Vietnam (EVN), has a mandate to supply electricity to
80 percent of Vietnam’s households by the year 2010.
Currently, less than 50 percent of rural households have
electricity. Rural electrification via extensions of the
centralized power grid is prohibitively expensive given
the costs of new infrastructure and the economic status
of rural residents.
The government’s efforts to increase rural electrification
have focused on promoting the use of renewable
energy. The World Bank agrees with this strategy and
has provided $95,000 to help local authorities implement
renewable energy projects. Local companies now
manufacture family and small community micro-hydrounits,
solar heaters, solar photo voltaic, family wind
turbines, and family and community biogas digester
systems.
10.2—Micro-Hydro
Vietnam has long used micro-hydro for energy needs
at the family and small community level in rural areas.
Since 1955, the government has funded research and
implementation of small-scale hydro power to electrify
rural and mountainous areas. Over 400 small hydro
stations are now in place with a total installed capacity
of 30 megawatts. The stations supply electricity to over
1 million people in 20 mountainous and remote provinces.
On a smaller scale, it is believed that over 100,000
micro- and family-hydropower generators are now in use.
Local, state-owned facilities such as the Ho Chi Minh
City-based Research Center for Thermal Equipment and
Renewable Energy (RECTARE) and the Hanoi-based
Hydro Power Center produce units ranging in capacity
from 100 watts to 1,000 kilowatts. However, systems
imported from China that retail for roughly $20 per unit
have the majority of the market share, especially in
northern mountainous regions.
Some private companies are becoming active in the
micro-hydro market. Danish development aid has
financed one such company, focused on building minihydro
electric dams. Privately owned Viet Phong Co.
teamed with Den Elec to consult on renewable energy
projects. The companies are helping Lam Dong Province
to construct a small hydroelectric plant. The firms also
provide consulting services on thermal electricity, wind
energy, hydro energy, solar energy, and improving
efficiency of electricity transmission and distribution.
10.3—Solar
Solar Lab, at the Institute of Technology in Ho Chi
Minh City, and the Institute of Energy in Hanoi are the
leading institutions focused on research and development
of solar-powered generation systems.
Vietnam has over 110 monitoring stations throughout
the country to track data on solar energy resources. On a
countrywide basis, average total annual insolation ranges
from 4 to 5 kilowatt hours per square meter per day.
There are currently five large-scale solar photovoltaic
power systems in Vietnam. These include a hybrid system
of solar photovoltaic (PV) and micro-hydro power
generation in Gia Lai province that has a capacity of 125
kilowatts (PV has 100 peak kilowatts). Ninety percent
of the financing for the project came from Japan’s New
Energy and Industrial Technology Development
Organization (NEDO).
The government has financed construction of 100 solar
home systems and 200 solar community systems for
inhabitants of islands off the northeast coast. Total
capacity of these systems is 25 peak kilowatts. Four
hundred solar home systems were built for communities
in Tien Giang and Tra Vinh provinces with a total capacity
of 14 kWp.
According to the Institute of Energy, three large PV
projects to be built over the next two to four years are
now in the planning stages. Ten hybrid systems (PV and
diesel), with a capacity of 10 kilowatts each, are being
built with funding from the German government and
EVN. Tohoku of Japan is considering funding a hybrid
system of PV and wind-power generation in Dak Lak
Vietnam Export Market Plan
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