In the report to the Prime Minister, the ministry put forward two cases of direct power purchase between renewable power generation units and manufacturing units with high consumption levels.

Firstly, buying and selling electricity through specified transmission lines developed by private investors in this case, electricity generators and consumers will not face limitations in capacity, output, connection voltage level or electricity use purposes.

Electricity generators must be responsible for developing projects suitable to the electricity development plan; and observe regulations on power operation licensing. 

Electricity generators and clients have responsibilities of following regulations on electricity sales and electricity prices as prescribed.

The retail electricity prices applied to major consumers of electricity are cited in Decision 1062 dated May 4 (VND1,920.3732 per kwh) and circulars released by MOIT.

Secondly, buying and selling electricity between generators and clients and not through the national grid. 

In this case, the transactions between the two parties still must be made through the power retailers (Electricity of Vietnam - EVN - is the only retailer at this time), which means that sellers and buyers do not make direct transactions.

There are a number of conditions that sellers and buyers must observe.

The requirement is that the power generating units with wind or solar power plants have to connect to the national power system and have a capacity of 10MW or higher. 

Meanwhile, large electricity consumers (institutions, individuals who buy electricity to serve production purposes) must have a voltage level of 22KV or higher.

In this case, as the Law on Price and the legal documents guiding the implementation of the law still have not taken effect, the retailer will apply Decision No 24/2017 dated June 30, 2017 and Decision 28/2014 dated April 7, 2014.

Once the Law on Price and guiding legal documents take effect, the retail prices will be fixed based on the principle of covering all production costs plus service fees.

In fact, in 2017, MOIT assigned the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam to organize implementation of the project on building DPPA schemes between renewable power generators and large power consumers. However, until now, the scheme has not been built up.

DPPA is a scheme suggested by international institutions for Vietnam. Amcham stressed that DPPA is an important mechanism to help investors and private investors, not only in the energy sector, but other sectors as well. It hopes DPPA, which can bring billions of USD of investment from the private sector, may take effect this year.

Luong Bang