Dr Soren Karkov

Director Renewable Energy, DNV Singapore

In my opinion, four main vulnerabilities of Vietnam’s energy sustainability including Climate change; Geopolitical; Fossil Fuel Price; Rising Energy demand and three key mitigating strategies to address the vulnerabilities around energy sustainability including Policies and Regulation; Technology adoption and infrastructure development; Optimizing energy efficiency. In this, to diversify power generation we have to use renewable energy to cope with rising energy demands. Because, renewable energy is clean and can provide to meet the rising energy demands. Moreover, Vietnam has huge potential in terms of renewable energy, we must take advantage of energy.

 

Currently, the state of infrastructure in Vietnam is unable to accommodate the growing electricity demand. Specially, when more investments beyond EVN financial resources is required to keep up with rapidly growing demand of around 14 percent. That’s challenge for Vietnam’s renewable energy. So, the rural electrification target is further prompting the need of better power network. According to the World Energy Outlook, in 2005 the electrification rate in Vietnam was 84.2 percent, slightly below the average for East Asia, which was 88.5 percent. It’s necessary for policy framework to require in electrification planning to standardize and regulate processes and procedures.

 

Thus, some measures to consider when implementing sustainable policies: Rebalance strategic ambitions in light of energy sustainability goals; Develop policy frameworks that are sufficiently flexible; Encourage technology transfer and partnership arrangements (Leveraging foreign expertise and financing to support long-term success of domestic energy industries); Strengthen regulatory frameworks that support the development of new infrastructure; Plan for the completion of economic-crisis stimulus funding and the gradual removal of subsidies…

 

Dr Kelvin Tan

DNV Clean Technology Centre

According BMI, Vietnamese real GDP growth averages 5.92 percent pa between 2010 and 2014 and population to expand from 88 million to 94.1 million. Renewable energy is one of the avenues to mitigate energy deficit due to growing demand in the rapidly expanding economy of Vietnam. Therefore, necessary policies and infrastructure need to be in place to ensure successful penetration of renewable energy to the power grid. Moreover, the absence of comprehensive renewable policy needs to be built through a mix of various schemes and mechanisms. Vietnam needs to take advantage of renewable energy sources and attach importance to energy conservation programes to support social and economic development and energy security for the future.

 

Today, electricity generation is currently provided by 4 main sources Coal, Oil, Gas and Hydro in Vietnam. According to BMI estimates in 2009, Oil-fired generation accounted for 3.3 percent of the Vietnam’s total power generation; Gas-fired generation accounted for 32.7 percent; Coal-fired generation accounted for 22.2 percent and Hydropower is the main form of renewable energy that is currently used in Vietnam. Vietnam is rich in hydropower resources, mostly in the north and central regions near Lao PDR and China. The total potential is estimated to be around 80,000 Gwh/year. Around 20 percent of this (approx 6000 Gwh/year) is small hydro (under 10MW). However, there are a lot of challenges including price determination by EVN, the single buyer of 12-13 percent IRR for small renewable projects is considered low; Finance is also difficult due to the low price of power purchase agreement between the state owned EVN and developer.

 

In addition, wind, as a type of renewable power source, is currently underexploited in Vietnam and can be further utilized. But Vietnam lacks finance for large scale wind farms. Wind resource characteristic investigation should be utilised to properly identify energy potential in Vietnam.

 

Ms Pham Thi Thu Hang

Secretary General of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The speed the power consumption in Vietnam tends to double GDP growth rate. As predicted, in the period 2010 - 2020 Vietnam will lose the ability to balance supply and demand for energy sources. Therefore, Vietnam should have a long-term development strategy, in which renewable energy is a right choice. Besides, in 2025 Vietnam can only meet 30 percent of energy consumption in the country. Meanwhile, the country will depend more on supply and world energy prices, the cost of investment in energy will increase. It is a challenge for energy security and sustainable development.

 

Vietnam has been a backward country in the development of renewable energy in the region and the world. It's time Vietnam took stronger and more specific steps to develop renewable energy.

 

 

Yen Ha