THE POTENTIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF RENEWABLE ENERGY
The development of renewable energy (RE) is becoming increasingly urgent in the context of high electricity demand, while traditional power sources such as hydroelectricity, thermal power, oil power... are not enough for use. However, it is necessary to have strong enough policies to quickly attract investment and create conditions for projects to come into operation.
Power sector policy is in the transition period, there have been breakthrough policies that changed the landscape of the industry since 2017, spectacular growth results from the development of renewable energy sources as wind and solar energy in the period 2018-2021. Besides, achieving the target of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as set forth in the Paris Agreement on climate change will depend heavily on the development path of developing economies such as Vietnam (Chinh & Hoang, 2011), 2009; BH Nguyen & Kim, 2017). Recently, at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, on behalf of Vietnam, committed by 2050 to bring emissions to zero. This is an event that brings great opportunities for the energy industry of Vietnam. With great potential for solar power and ambitious green energy goals by 2050, Vietnam has many opportunities to become a global leader in renewable energy. In addition, there are compelling reasons to establish wind energy projects in Vietnam as Vietnam has the largest wind resource in the region with a potential of 311 GW.
The potential of solar energy products is not only for consumers but also for Vietnam. Vietnam has successfully developed many solar energy projects with more than 100 projects having signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) (Lan Anh, 2021). The total current capacity of solar power plants that have been put into operation is approximately 6,000MW, mainly concentrated in the southern provinces, namely the South Central region. Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan are two provinces with a lot of projects, accounting for more than 42%. With many benefits brought to the Government as well as to the community, rooftop solar power has been interested by people and businesses (Jirakiattikul & Lan, 2021). Vietnam has recently witnessed phenomenal growth in solar photovoltaic (PV). This is believed to be the start of the country's energy transition away from coal. Vietnam's solar power capacity increased from 86 MW in 2018 to about 16,500 MW in 2020. Therefore, Vietnam overtook Thailand to become the ASEAN country with the largest installed capacity of solar power.
For wind power, the first FIT policy for wind power was issued in 2011 with a price of 78 USD/MWh, however, this price is considered to be not commercially viable. by 2017 the total installed capacity will reach 135 MW. It is specially that all 3 projects implemented at this stage are applying a special financial mechanism, not simply using the issued FIT price. In which to promote the development of wind energy in Vietnam, the Prime Minister has issued the FIT2 price since November 2018, with a rate of 85 USD/MWh applied to onshore wind power projects and 98 USD/MWh for offshore project (Decision No. 39/2018/QD-TTg). This has caused the market to react quickly to this decision, specifically it is expected that by the end of 2021, Vietnam will have about 5,886 MW of wind power put into operation, 43 times the total installed capacity in 2017.
Vietnam is facing the opportunity to welcome a large wave of investment from abroad after the Covid-19 pandemic, including in the renewable energy sector. To catch this wave, there must be better policies, superior to other countries. In other words, good policy will create success for renewable energy projects. This is extremely important and completely consistent with the orientation set by the Government that by 2030 will gradually increase the proportion of renewable energy projects in the power system in order to both take advantage of endless resources and solve electricity shortage problem, while reducing pressure on the environment.
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