VietNamNet Bridge – Using renewable energy has become a growing tendency in the world, especially when fossil fuel sources are becoming exhausted. However, renewable energy has not been widely used in Vietnam.

Solar energy

The biggest solar power system in HCM City is being developed by Tuan An Group in Binh Tan District. The system has the investment capital of two billion dong and the capacity of 70kwh a day, or 18,980 kwh a year, meeting 30 percent of the electricity demand of the office building run by the group.

Kim Dinh Company in Hanoi, an energy equipment supplier, occasionally gets the orders to install public lightening systems used wind or solar power. Meanwhile, its main products are energy saving LED lamps and some other kinds of products.

Analysts said that the biggest success in the solar energy development is the water heaters using solar energy. It is estimated that 40,000 products are selling every year. According to Huynh Kim Tuoc, Director of the HCM City Energy Saving Centre, in HCM City alone, there are 86 companies trading these products.

However, it seems that it is not right time now to develop renewable energy in Vietnam. Enterprises still hesitate to make investment in the field, because the required investment capital is very big, 4-5 times higher than the investment in other fields.

Wind power

In September 2010, the construction of the wind power plant started in Bac Lieu province. Once operational, the plant, capitalized at 4500 billion dong, will have the capacity of 99MW.

In Ninh Thuan province, a Hanoi-based company is planning to develop a wind power project capitalized at 206 million euro. The plant will have the capacity of 97.5MW in the first phase of the project, while the figure will increase by 67.5MW in the second phase.

The same company is also planning to carry out another 50MW wind power project in Binh Thuan.

According to the Binh Thuan Wind Power Association, 20 wind power projects have been licensed in Vietnam. Many corporations have set up subsidiaries specializing in making investment in renewable energy. Dragon Capital, an investment fund, has set up a $45 million fund, specializing in investing in clean energy development.

Currently, though the import tax rate imposed on wind power equipments is zero percent, the equipments, mostly imported from Europe, are very expensive. Therefore, the sale prices of wind power plants are very high, at 8 cent per kwh on average, while the current electricity price is 5.3 cent.

Experts say that tens of big foreign companies have got ready to make investment in Vietnam, and they will arrive in the country when the Government of Vietnam applies open policies.

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon