EVN General Director Tran Dinh Nhan emphasized that the necessity to focus on removing difficulties and obstacles to promote RSP. EVN will create favourable conditions for RSP to develop appropriately, bringing high efficiency to investors, in accordance with the absorption and releasing capacity of the power grid. At the same time, the RSP development will contribute to creating the on-site power supply source, and ensuring power supply when Vietnam's power system has no backup source left,
EVN General Director instructed the specialized boards of EVN and the power corporations to research and publish information on the absorbing ability of RSP sources in areas for investors to consider the appropriate locations and scales of system investment. At the same time, technical instructions and standards were given to assist investors in choosing the appropriate technology.
EVN General Director Tran Dinh Nhan chairing the meeting
According to the report of EVN Business Board at the meeting, on 7 June 2020, there were more than 31,100 RSP systems across the country, with a total installed capacity of more than 640MWp, power fed back to the grid reached over 145 million kWh, the total value of electricity paid to customers by EVN was more than VND 300 billion.
The process of developing RSP systems, has faced some problems. Specifically, there are a number of solar power projects in the provinces and cities that have solar panels installed on a bracket system (without roof) on the ground, with a capacity of under 01MW connected to the power grid of voltage level ≤ 35 kV. Or the solar power project is connected to the grid with voltage level of ≤ 35 kV, there are solar panels installed a small part on the roof, the rest is installed on the land area of electricity customers. There are also cases where a solar power project is installed on the roofs of factories and warehouses of customers in the industrial park, buying electricity from the grid of EVN for use while selling solar power to the grid of EVN via the 110kV transformer.
Under Clause 5 and Clause 6, Article 3 of Decision No. 13/2020/QD-TTg, the above projects are called grid-connected solar power.
Also as specified in Clauses 1, 3 and 4, Article 5 of this decision, only grid-connected projects have been decided by investment authorities before 23 November 2019 or already included in power development planning at all levels and with commercial operation period from 1 July 2019 to the end of 31 December 2020 can apply the grid-connected solar power price as stated in Decision No. 13/2020/QD- TTg, the remaining grid-connected solar power projects, the purchase price of electricity is determined by the competition mechanism. Therefore, the pricing of the above-mentioned solar power projects with the capacity of under 1 MW has not been determined yet.
EVN requests the Ministry of Industry and Trade to consider solar power projects with capacity of less than 01 MW in the above cases to be rooftop solar power so as to encourage all economic sectors to invest in developing solar power.
RSP system is encouraged to develop with the goal of self-consumption in place
In addition, some RSP project investors signing power purchase contracts with EVN before 30 June 2019, now in need of installing to increase capacity for the project, are also facing difficulty in identifying electricity purchase price for EVN.
In order to ensure the right purchase price of solar power in each period in accordance with the Prime Minister's Decisions, EVN proposed the Ministry of Industry and Trade to allow EVN to apply the electricity purchase price for the output fed back to the grid corresponding to the installed capacity ratio before and after 30 June 2019.
At the same time, it is required to supplement sanctions in case the RSP project investors increase their capacity without notifying the electricity purchasing party such as: violating the contract, refusing to refund the excessive payment of power by EVN, unilaterally terminate the contract, and so on.