HCMC annually consumes about 22 billion kWh of power, accounting for 15% of total consumption of the country. The context of implementing development orientation of smart city requires the ability to deal with environmental challenges, in which the investment solution in development of renewable energy plays a crucial role.
According to the assessment from Department of Natural Resources and Environment of HCMC, the total capacity of renewable energy in the area has been 35.4MW so far, compared with the largest demand for load of 3,575MW in this city. Additionally, the City does not have any large land area or appropriate topography to develop large-scale power generation projects such as hydropower, thermal power, nuclear power. Wind power model is also not appropriate for the City because of the requirements for larger area and complicated installation. Therefore, the development of solar energy and energy saving is the solution that should be selected by the City.
According to statistics of HCMC’s Department of Industry and Trade, in the period of 2011 - 2017, the City had saved 3,100 million kWh of power, contributing to reducing over 2,039 million tons of CO2. However, the field of renewable energy of the City has slowly developed, mainly water heaters using solar energy. Power generation source from solar energy has not been significantly exploited due to high investment costs, while electricity price has not been supported by the state.
There have been about 17,340 water heaters using solar energy in the City, contributing to reducing the power grid system’s capacity by about 31MW. For solar power, currently, the installed capacity of solar cells in the City has been estimated to reach 2MWp (with 1,838.2kWp connected to the grid); of which 1,607.2kWp is distributed for buildings of offices and enterprises (87.5%), 231kWp is distributed for households (12.5%).
From April 2017, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 11/2017/QD-TTg on mechanisms to encourage developing solar power projects in Vietnam. This decision has strongly promoted the investment in solar power projects, especially the rooftop solar power projects. After the Decision issuance, the HCMC’s Department of Industry and Trade worked with HCMC Power Corporation to support the people and enterprises in signing electricity purchase contracts, connection points and supplying 2-way meters, etc. So far, in the locality, there have been 274 customers using solar power connected to the grid with a total capacity of 3.6 MWp, of which 245/274 customers have registered to sell their surplus power to the Power sector that has been tested under technical requirements of grid connection and installation of 2-way meters.
The research conducted by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that the renewable energy is accounting for 2/3 new energy sources. Of which solar energy is the leading with about 50% of total renewable energy. It is predicted that in the next 5 years, this source may be cheaper than energy form fossil fuels. According to experts, advances in technology as well as new policies are creating favourable opportunities for solar power development, even at household scale.