INTRODUCING RENEWABLE ENERGY IN VIETNAM

According to Vietnam Briefing and American Magazine Entrepreneur, Vietnam is the country has had renewable energy rising quickly.

According to the international energy agency, Vietnam is the second largest electricity country in Southeast Asia. Energy consumption in the region is one of the fastest increases in the world, with a stable increase in a stable level of 6%/year in the past 20 years. According to Techwire Asia, 80% of energy demand in the region from 4 main countries are Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

The parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) met in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, on November 22 at the top of the commitment to neutralize Carbon by 2050. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam will have to gradually eliminate coal factories and modernize the national grid.

Currently, Vietnam is expecting GDP growth will recover at 6.5% by 2025, according to Asian Development Bank. Electricity consumption has increased by more than 11% per year, significantly faster than the national GDP, to meet the huge demand for electricity and investment. However, the production of fossil fuels in the country cannot meet the needs, requiring Vietnam to rely on foreign markets to have enough resources to provide energy for infrastructure.

Climate change and the fact that Vietnam's electrical grid is dependent on imported energy are two reasons why the government is moving toward renewable energy.

Wind power and solar power: Two potential areas in Vietnam

Vietnam's climate and terrain causes renewable energy, especially wind power, with significant investment prospects. Vietnam's vast wind resource is thanks to the long and narrow geographical shape of the country with more than 3,000 km of coastline, including hills and mountains.

According to the World Bank, more than 39% of Vietnam has a wind speed greater than 6 meters/second at 65 meters, equivalent to a capacity of 512GW. With 8.6% of the total land area suitable for major wind farms, Vietnam has a lot of potentials. Vietnam may grow its air power on the shore from 1.26GW to 17.34GW and its offshore wind power from 1GW to 5-19GW in five years, according to the World Bank's offshore wind power route for Vietnam. The country might generate a total added value (GVA) of around 60 billion USD as a result.

Vietnam has recently witnessed the extraordinary solar photovoltaic growth (PV), but this is only the first step of the country's vast energy transformation process from coal. Vietnam's solar power capacity has increased from 86MW in 2018 to about 16,500MW in 2020. As a result, Vietnam has surpassed Thailand to become ASEAN country with the largest solar power installation capacity. The solar power system provides about 10.6TWh of electricity by 2020, accounting for nearly 4% of the total output.The attic solar power will account for about half of Vietnam's total solar power capacity by 2030.

With the promising solar production environment, Vietnam completely has strong potentials to provide more clean energy and the need to improve the electricity quality of Vietnamese people in the near future.