The 49 megawatt plant will span 55 hectares in Loc Tan Commune, Loc Ninh District. Shenbagam Manthiram, Chief Representative Officer of Tata Power Company in Vietnam, said that the locality has good conditions for the company to carry out the project, including many sunny hours, convenient transport links and national grid connections. Tata Power is asking the province to facilitate the project so that it can complete it before June, 2019, he added.
Lauding the project, Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Van Tram said he has asked local Department of Industry and Trade and relevant agencies to support the company with legal assistance so all necessary procedures can be finalised as soon as possible.
He noted that the province will convert more than 20,000 hectares of forest land and rubber cultivation areas with low economic efficiency into land for solar power development in Loc Ninh District. This will be made in tandem with branching out land funds to attract hi-tech agriculture development, Tram stressed, adding that the province is prioritising investment in renewable power and clean power.
Solar has been high on the agenda in Vietnam since the publication of the Prime Minister’s decision 11/2017 in April, which fixed the price for solar power at 9.35 cents/kWh. It also sets June 2019 as the deadline for solar power plants to be built and connected to the grid to receive the guaranteed solar feed-in tariff (FIT) price.
Solar projects require high upfront investments. In some provinces, land availability or grid capacity limit the number of projects that can be approved by local and central authorities.
As solar power is still quite new in Vietnam, and having in mind that all projects have to be built and connected by June 2019, we believe that the combination of local knowledge and international experience will be a great recipe for successful solar power projects.
According to the Vietnamese Government’s targets, solar power is expected to become the main new renewable energy source in the future, with an installed capacity to be increased from around 6-7 MW by the end of 2017 to 850 MW by 2020 (equivalent to 1.6 percent of the country’s power generation) and 12,000 MW by 2030 (equivalent to 3.3 percent of the country’s power generation).
