In order to clear the bottlenecks, hot issues about organizing solar power bidding were raised at the conference “Renewable Energy (RE) in Vietnam – From policy to practice” on November 27, in Hanoi. The conference was co-organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Energy Association, VTV24 News Center (Vietnam Television Station Office) and TAJ Vietnam Communications Co., Ltd.
Clearing bottlenecks for RE
By June 2019, the whole country had got 98 RE projects with a total capacity of 4,880MW put into operation, accounting for nearly 9% of the country’s total electricity capacity. There are 89 solar power plants with a total capacity of nearly 4,440MW. This figure has reached far beyond expectation about the revised PDP VII (only 850MW of solar power).
Worth mentioning, most of the solar power projects were put into operation in April – June 2019 with a total capacity of nearly 4,000MW and mass concentrated in the provinces of Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan. The overgrowth of RE projects has led to the overload of the transmission grid.
Currently, EVN has mobilized the maximum generation capacity of 79/98 RE plants (with a total capacity of nearly 4,200MW, accounting for 86% of the total capacity of RE sources). 19 factories in Ninh Thuan province and Binh Thuan province with a total capacity of nearly 670MW must apply the generation capacity limits. The reason is that these 19 projects are connected on the 110kV single circuit transmission line of Thap Cham – Phan Ri – Dai Ninh (the maximum clearance capacity is nearly 230MW, equal to 35% of the installation capacity of the projects).
At the conference, many experts said that the underlying cause of the “bottleneck” lied in the planning.
According to economist Vũ Đình Ánh, in just a few months, solar power planning was broken. For knowing when to get discount prices, the investors mass deployed. Electrical construction planning in general and solar energy in particular must have synchronization in power generation – transmission – distribution. Especially, solar power planning must be linked to land planning and capital planning. National planning and provincial planning must be aranged in levels of construction and implementation. “It is not only to make requests when things get hard, it must be solved based on the laws”, said Mr. Vũ Đình Ánh.
Mr. Nguyễn Tuấn Anh – Planning manager of Electricity and Renewable Energy (RE) Department of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that in order to release RE capacity, the Ministry of Industry and Trade supported the private sector to invest in the transmission grid by 2 ways: First, private investors of power plants come to the connection point. In this case, according to the law, the investors and the electricity industry will agree on the scope of investment and operation management. Secondly, in terms of transmission grid investment, it is stated in the Electricity Law that in the case of the state’s monopoly on transmission, it must be clarified if the monopoly is also on investment or only on management operation. Here, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to explain in the direction of monopoly on management operation, while investment is still allowed to be socialized.
According to Mr. Tomaso Andreatta – Vice President of EuroCham, the outstanding result of RE investment is great but not a long-term solution. Vietnam is being the country that consumes the most energy per unit of product in the world. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the effective solutions to energy management.
Speaking at the conference, Mr. Nguyễn Tài Anh – Deputy Director of EVN shared that in order to promptly release RE capacity, EVN proposed to the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to add planning to transmission grid projects. Right after the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Industry and Trade approved, EVN focused all resources to deploy. So far, many projects have reached and exceeded the schedule. At the same time, the corporation also actively organized working sessions with the People’s Committees of Ninh Thuan province and Binh Thuan province, together with the investors to find out the solutions.
Currently, EVN has been making efforts to complete power grid projects that were added with planning by June 2020. At the same time, in October 2019, the Corporation also proposed the Government to add two projects to planning in an effort to release all the capacity of RE projects that had been put into operation before June 30, 2019.
Solar power bidding: It is necessary to screen the participants in the bidding
Regarding the bidding for solar power projects, Mr. Oliver Behrend – a senior expert from the World Bank said that it was important to have a good process of screening the participants of the bidding, and contract framework and mechanisms to mobilize finance …
And Ms. Hyunjung Le, senior energy economist from the Southeast Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank (the unit has just conducted a successful bid for solar power project in Cambodia), shared her opinion that in order to have a successful bid, preparation is required, including the methods, the process of how to achieve the best results, how to attract the greatest number of participants from the private sector so that the country can get the best price for solar power …
Mr. Đỗ Đức Quân – Deputy Director of Electricity and RE Department (Ministry of Industry and Trade) affirmed that bidding is the form to ensure publicity and transparency, and attract all economic sectors to participate. There are 2 bidding options: Firstly, bidding by substation (for example, this area has a substation with enough power to transmit capacity, and to bid around that area for low-cost projects to ensure the capacity scale). Secondly, release clean premises to welcome the investors.
Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is cooperating with international organizations to develop processes, procedures, etc. to accelerate the bidding process for solar power projects. It is expected that from now to 2021, certain projects will be deployed for bid testing, said Mr. Đỗ Đức Quân.
According to EVN
