Vietnam Environmental Technologies Export Market Plan

province. The system would also have a capacity of 10
kilowatts.
Electricité de France and the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs have pledged $1.5 million to finance solar
power programs in three southern provinces (Gia Lai,
Quang Nam, and Binh Phuoc) from 1999–2002. The
Vietnamese partners to the project are MOSTE,
Electricity of Vietnam, the Committee for Ethnic
Minorities, and Solarlab.
The Institute of Energy is preparing feasibility studies
for larger-scale wind farms. One is a 20 megawatt wind
farm in Khanh Hoa province. EVN and Germany’s
VENTIS are in discussions to build the farm under a
build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract. A second wind
farm with a capacity of 30 megawatts is proposed for
Binh Dinh province. The project would be funded by
Japanese aid. EVN plans to fund a third wind farm, also
in Khanh Hoa province, with a capacity of 20 megawatts.
10.4—Wind
The Research Center for Thermal Equipment and
Renewal Energy (RECTARE) is the primary organization
developing and promoting wind-energy technologies. The
center is under the Ho Chi Minh City Technical
University and has been granted permission by the
Ministry of Planning and Investment to build and sell
renewable energy products.
To date, RECTARE has installed over 800 wind
generators in over 40 provinces and towns throughout
Vietnam. The largest number of these units have been
installed near Nha Trang, in Khanh Hoa province on the
south central coast, where 135 units are in use. Nha Trang
is also home to one of only two wind villages in Vietnam.
The village was financed by MOSTE and by the Swiss-
Vietnam Association. The second wind village is located
on Can Gio island near Ho Chi Minh City, where 50 units
have been installed through the support of the French aid
agency Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique
(ACCT).
Nearly all of the units are for small-scale, household
use only. The generators in Nha Trang, for example, are
capable of charging one or two 100-ampere-per-hour
batteries per day. Each unit costs about 5 million dong
($353) to build and install, according to RECTARE.
RECTARE has built all of the generators producing 200
watts or less of electricity. Units producing 500 watts to
90 kilowatts of electricity are manufactured in Vietnam
but use some imported parts.
RECTARE officials have expressed interest in
purchasing higher-grade, small-scale wind turbines and
generator technology from foreign suppliers. These
purchases would be for 300 watt, 500 watt, or 1 kilowatt
units.
A second group responsible for developing windenergy
technologies is the Institute of Energy in Hanoi.
However, the Institute has neither the technology nor the
equipment to produce units on their own and must be
supplied with equipment by RECTARE in Ho Chi Minh
City.
10.5—Biomass
Biomass and wood fuel account for about 57 percent
of primary energy consumption in Vietnam. Besides
wood, agricultural residues and agro-industrial residues
are the main biomass fuel sources. Most of these fuel
sources are used on a household level.
Rice growers create about 45 million tons of paddy
straw annually, accounting for over 90 percent of the
waste. It is used as fuel and as livestock feed. It is also
used as a bio-fertilizer via field burning. Roughly 3
million tons of sugar cane trash, coconut shells and
leaves, and cassava stems are produced annually,
accounting for about 6 percent of the combined waste.
This waste is used primarily as fuel or fertilizer at the
household level.
Foreign investors have prepared feasibility studies on
the use of urban biowastes for power generation, although
no major commercial biomass plants are yet in operation.
There is an Australian-funded project in the works for
Long An province. It will burn rice husks and produce
50 kilowatt hours of electricity.
The government is still considering the $106 million
BOT plant in Ho Chi Minh City backed by American
and British investors. The proposed project would include
construction of a waste plant capable of treating 1,500
to 3,000 tons of waste per day, generating 15 megawatts
of power, and up to 480,000 tons of NPK per year. The
project is in discussion stages with the Ho Chi Minh City
Department of Urban Planning and Transportation.
The central problem for these co-generation/waste
projects has been price. The cost to produce a kilowatt
hour of power from solid waste is expensive (around 10
to 12 cents per kilowatt hour). However, EVN can only
charge its customers half that amount, so it is willing to
buy power at no more than 6 cents per kilowatt hour.
Until price reform takes place, bio-waste projects (and
other types of renewable—and usually expensive—power
generation) may simply be too expensive.
40 U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration