The coastal areas of Vietnam, especially the two provinces of Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan, have the best conditions in the world for wind power development. According to the World Bank, our country’s wind power potential is up to 25GW by 2035, creating 700,000 jobs per year and reducing 217 million tons of CO2.
In Europe, which already has large-scale offshore wind power projects, this type of energy is rather favored for its efficiency and lower operating costs than hydro, nuclear, etc. Offshore wind power is also being strongly deployed in countries such as Taiwan, Japan, China and South Korea. This will create a complete supply chain, and reduce operating and construction costs in the Asian region, from which Vietnam can get benefits.
The combination of strong winds, shallow water, coastal cities, available deep-water harbors and skilled Vietnamese workers is ideal for offshore wind power. Vietnam is uniquely positioned to pursue the dream of offshore wind power as a safe source of energy and as a key part of the transition to clean energy.
Currently, there is no established offshore wind farm in Vietnam, wind power projects are just concentrated in coastal and intertidal /nearshore areas. These are the typical examples found in a new market that is in the early stages of adopting wind energy as a power source. Because onshore and intertidal /nearshore wind farms are in small-scale, it is easier to be sponsored and requires a shorter amount of time to develop. Denmark and China, for example, first started developing wind power in tidal and nearshore areas before switching to offshore wind.
In other countries, the main drives to move wind power projects offshore are wind quality, available space, environmental concerns, and avoiding conflicts with coastal communities and marine users. Also in Vietnam, the offshore wind power projects will actually be in the areas with higher and more stable wind speed, towards consistent and efficient energy production. Offshore wind farms not only have little impact on the environment, as there is little biodiversity in deep water areas, but they have little impact on vision and noise, and will have less of an impact on the marine users, such as the military, shipping, fishing and tourism sectors.
Up till now, the development of intertidal /nearshore wind power in Viet Nam has been driven by government policies, including the issuance of Feed-In-Tariffs (FITs – electricity price tariff) produced from feed-in or sold to the grid) in particular for “offshore” (intertidal /nearshore) projects. For the success of Vietnam’s offshore wind power, it is necessary to have a similar specialized policy. This is because the offshore wind characteristics are distinct from the intertidal /nearshore wind, while the supply chain needs an initial step. The main differences are summarized below:
To tap into the enormous potential of offshore wind power in Vietnam, developers are calling on the Government to secure the industry, which will allow them to invest in development. The government can do this by setting goals and making specialized policies for offshore wind power.
According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the world is embracing offshore wind power – global offshore wind capacity is expected to increase from 29 GW in 2020 to more than 234 GW by 2030, led by the exponential growth in Asia-Pacific, and continue the strong growth in Europe. Other countries that started with the intertidal /nearshore wind policies like Denmark and China have also fully embraced offshore wind power. Like these markets, Vietnam has the opportunity to take advantage of the coastal conditions in order to achieve energy security, create jobs and provide clean offshore wind power in the upcoming years.
Source: nangluongvietnam.vn
