Once again Vietnam has set another local record in its solar sector. This time it is for rooftop solar installation. At the end of 2020, the country’s rooftop solar installations added 9.3 gigawatts (GW) to its national grid.
Vietnam outdid itself with a new record by creating an eight-fold increase in rooftop solar by the end of December 2020 from only 378 megawatts (MW) in 2019. What is more jaw-dropping is that 6 GW out of the 9.3 GW was built in the last month of 2020; when the solar rooftop feed-in-tariff from the government was about to expire.
Vietnam raised the bar even higher after its first unexpected solar boom in 2019 when the country racked 4.5 GW worth of installations in less than two years after the feed-in-tariff was launched. The recent achievement has effectively made Vietnam the world’s third-largest solar market in 2020.
Vietnam’s take on policy support for rooftop solar is quite distinct from the rest of its ASEAN neighbours. While other ASEAN Member States (AMS) are pushing for rooftop solar using a net-metering scheme aimed at self-consumption like in Malaysia and Thailand or mainly focused on residential usage like in Indonesia, Vietnam has policy support in place for solar rooftop using Feed in Tariff (FiT), just like it has done for ground-mounted solar.
The price for the first round of rooftop solar is also the same for utility-scale solar plants, which is far above the price offered under typical net-metering. This scheme is quite favourable for the investor if they want to install rooftop solar, either for self-consumption or selling to the grid.
With the inclusion of not only residential but industrial and commercial in terms of participation, Vietnam has attracted a huge deal of investment leading to around 101,000 rooftop solar installations to date. In short, Vietnam is trying to amplify its utility-scale solar, but instead of on land, they want it on the roof.
This successful initiative for RE has influenced the country’s planning for its electricity generation. The new Power Development Plan (PDP) 8 draft shows that Vietnam intends to allow RE a bigger role to play in the sector up to 2030 and even further to 2045. With high RE uptake in their grid, Vietnam will require a significant transmission capacity increase and an upgrade to more flexible grid operation which means coal capacity needs to be reduced.
PDP 8 foresees significant cancellations of new coal-power plants. The country will see no additional coal-fired plants during 2026-2030 with 9.5 GW coal projects scrapped as outlined in the previous PDP as well as a 7.6 GW coal project pushed back until after 2030. Solar and wind are predicted to make up 28 percent of total system capacity in 2030 and 41 percent in 2045.
With Vietnam being the new ASEAN tiger in terms of RE in the region, outstripping Thailand as the previous pioneer, it could likely bring the region closer to its RE target for 2025. In 2017, the ASEAN RE share in primary energy supply was still around 13.7 percent.
https://theaseanpost.com/article/vietnam-smashes-2020-solar-capacity-records