On 6th November 2019, in Ho Chi Minh City, after the first successful exploration in Spain of Europe in past June, PV Box, a Chinese vertical professional solar media successfully held another solar and wind summit in the center of this hottest Southeast Asia market of 2019.
Over three hundred industrial CEOs of solar and wind industries, representatives from government, associations and Vietnam Electricity Corporation (EVN), bankers and investors from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian markets joined the summit dialogues and have had constructive in-depth discussions about several hot issues.
Mr. Bui Quoc Hung, Deputy General Director of Vietnam’s Ministry of Industries and Trades (MOIT) made a welcome opening speech for the conference. Vietnam has one of the highest GDP growth rates in the region. And for this economic and industrial development, we need electrical power.
In recent years, the Vietnam renewable energy market have developed rapidly. Over 5GW of renewable energy projects have been connected to the grid during the past 6 months, which is an indication of how strong the market momentum is. The current Feed-in Tariff for wind power is still in effect until December 2021, and the new Feed-in Tariff for solar power is also at the final stage of review by the Prime Minister. The amount of renewable energy projects already registered and in pipeline at the moment has come to dozens of GW for up until the year 2025.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Dung, Renewable Department Director of EVN made a speech and introduced the current situation of renewable energy in Vietnam.
With an incredible growth and installation rush by end of this June, Vietnam is estimated to achieve a PV solar installation of 5.5 GW in 2019, which is a YoY increasing of 3900% to 4000% over 2018. Benefits from high FIT policy, investors were satisfied with the investment returns in PV solar plant. However, with the new FIT which was applied for government approval, how much will it be cut off compared with previous and when it will be released is becoming a major concern by the whole industry.
Mr. Nguyen Hoang Long from FECON, Cristiano Spillati, MD of Limes Renewable Energy, representative from B. Grimm discussed about the solar investment and development in Vietnam in the coming 2020. They both agreed that the Vietnam market is still a policy dependent market. Enterprises have to prepare for different policy released. Furthermore, due to the rapid growth in 2019, grid capacity and curtailment are becoming major concerns. However, this market is with the best condition including supporting policy for PV solar investment.
As long as the rooftop solar (RTS) development in Vietnam, Ms. Nguyen Thuy Ngan, Solar Community Development Director of Solar BK stressed that the most driving factor for RTS is not only coming from clean energy, but creating value for customers. Thomas Jakobsen, MD of Indochina Energy Partners estimated 500 MW RTS will be finished by end of 2019 and maybe another 500 MW in 2020.
Jose Antonio Millan Ruano, Chief Global Development Officer of Univergy International, Frank Phuan, CEO of Sunseap Group, Franck Constant, CEO of Constant Energy, Dr. Hoang Giang President of Pacifico Energy have had a panel discussion, with moderation of Jack Kneeland, Partner of Vector Energy Advisory, about the future development and trend of utility scale solar in Vietnam. They all expressed their concerns about the transmitting capacity of EVN under the rapid growth of renewable energy. They agreed the PPA model should be applied in future but still need to wait. Frank Phuan specially pointed out that for future utility solar project, cheap land maybe the very first priority factor for evaluation, which is becoming harder and harder to find. And also very important issue is to prepare storage ability for future projects.
Samresh Kumar, MD of Vina Capital, Tuan Phung, Vice Chairman of Vietnam Association of Financial Investors, Oman Singh, Regional Director of Hero Future Energies Asia, Mr. Nguyen Van Tau, Country Director of ACWA Power and Dr. Viet-Hung Nguyen, CEO of CTV Wind Civil Engineering, sit together and discussed about the opportunities and challenges when investment in Solar and Wind power projects in Vietnam.
When talking about the risk assessment and financial modeling for solar & wind power projects in Vietnam, Daniel Mallo, MD of Societe Generale, Murthy Nuni, Founder and Director of Marshal Funds, Nguyen Ho Nam, Founder and Chairman of Bamboo Capital Group and Hugo Virag, Director of Astris Finance joined the discussion and shared their views.
The conference especially invited Mr. Thai Tran, the CTO of Applied Technical Systems (ATS) to give a speech about the transmission congestion and operation issues of local PV solar projects. And Mr. Naveen Balachandran, special advisor of Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) to give a speech about how to reduce the potential risks when in developing of Wind & Solar projects.
Major China PV solar industrial participants Longi Solar, Growatt and Arctech Solar Risen solar presented their outlook of latest products, services and solutions for Vietnam and Southeast Asia market, by their functional or local representatives.
All participants sing high praise in the organization and host of PV Box, which successfully delivered a high level summit about Vietnam Solar and Wind market. It is a very good opportunity to gather and talk about the prospective of Vietnamese market, ahead of another wave to peak time. To PV Box, it is the first show in Southeast Asia, but it is just a beginning.
