Vietnam’s Ministry of Energy has released the National Electricity Development Plan for 2021-2030, which aims to improve the country’s energy security. The Vietnamese government plans to allocate US$135 billion to deploy more renewable energy generation facilities and expand grid capacity, including power line projects that will connect Vietnam’s grid to neighbouring countries.
The plan, released by Vietnam’s Ministry of Energy, will create the conditions for the deployment of rooftop PV systems in more than half of commercial and residential buildings across the country through net metering rules, while stating that there will be no feed-in tariff subsidies in the future. According to the Ministry of Energy, Vietnam’s share of renewable energy generation is expected to account for more than 70% of its overall electricity production by 2050.
To date, Vietnam has installed a cumulative total of over 18.4GW of PV systems, mainly through feed-in tariff schemes supporting small-scale and utility-scale installations of PV systems. However, since the expiry of the last scheme, the Vietnamese Ministry of Energy has not launched an auction scheme. Instead, the department has launched a pilot scheme to facilitate bilateral power purchase agreements and open up the electricity market.
The National Electricity Development Plan VII issued by the Ministry of Energy of Vietnam revises the target for PV system deployment to 2045 with a goal of adding 13.6GW of utility-scale PV systems and 3.4GW of rooftop PV systems. To compensate for the reduction in PV capacity, the plan includes the expansion of offshore wind facilities and onshore wind facilities, as well as the import of electricity from Laos.
