According to Vietnamese media reports, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh said recently that the previously set photovoltaic power generation target for 2031-2045 was "too high" and should be appropriately lowered to make room for wind power generation.
In late February this year, Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to set the country's installed power capacity at 146,000 megawatts from now until 2030, which is 9,000 megawatts less than the plan announced in November last year. The ministry also said that by 2045, Vietnam plans to have 352,000 megawatts of installed capacity, of which photovoltaics will account for 25 percent.
According to data from the Electric Power Company of Vietnam (EVN), as of 2021, Vietnam has ranked among the "Top 10 Global Photovoltaic Power Generation", reaching 16,504 MW, accounting for 2.3 percent of the world's total.
The report also stated that the overall plan for the development of electricity in Vietnam has gone through four rounds of revisions since the first draft was submitted by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade in March last year, and the dust has not settled yet. In view of this, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam has requested the higher authorities to postpone the specific implementation time of the plan to the second quarter of this year.
The same plan says that by 2045, renewable energy will account for 70 percent to 75 percent of Vietnam's national electricity capacity. At the 2021 UN climate change conference, Vietnam pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
The director of the Vietnam Electricity and Renewable Energy Administration, Huang Thien Dung, also said recently that Vietnam will speed up the transition from fossil fuels to clean and renewable energy. Tran Van Dong, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology of Vietnam, pointed out that Vietnam has huge potential for renewable energy development, with about 217 GW of onshore wind power, about 160 GW of offshore wind power, and about 434 GW of photovoltaic power generation.
According to the latest draft of the power development master plan, by 2045, offshore wind farms in Vietnam will be located mainly in the north and south of the country, with installed capacity increasing by 36 gigawatts, accounting for 10.8 percent of total power generation.
Matthews Holland, senior manager at the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), said Vietnam's offshore wind power efficiency could exceed 50 percent, rivaling that of hydropower. According to GWEC estimates, Vietnam's initial investment for the first 4-5 GW offshore wind farms is up to US12 billion, but subsequent operating costs can be greatly reduced. The cost of generating electricity per 1,000 kWh of offshore wind in Vietnam is expected to be around US83, which will further drop to US58 by 2025.
Holland also said that Vietnam has a long coastline of 3,260 kilometers, as well as low sea level and high wind speed (7 to 10 meters per second at a height of 100 meters), and the natural conditions for the development of offshore wind power are unique.
However, the United Nations Development Programme reminded the Vietnamese side that the latter should also pay attention to how to use new energy more effectively. Currently, Vietnam's unit energy consumption (the amount of energy required to produce 1 unit of GDP) is 1.5 to 1.7 times that of other countries in the region. That is, if Vietnam wants to be carbon neutral, it needs to cut manufacturing emissions in half. Moreover, with the increase of power generation, how to transmit and distribute safely, efficiently and energy-savingly is also a priority for Vietnam to be solved urgently.