At the “Energy Story” seminar held at the end of August 2019, energy experts said that according to the Adjusted Power Plan VII, by 2020 the total capacity of solar power will reach 850MW. However, as of June 2019, the total capacity of solar power has reached 4,500MW. Many experts do think that strong development of solar power will be an effective solution to release the concern of shortage in power sources, but in reality, solar power can only meet a very small part of the national power demand.
According to Mr. Vo Quang Lam – Deputy General Director of EVN, the total commercial power output in 2019 is expected to be 212 billion kWh, in average, the whole country needs about 750 million kWh per day. Meanwhile, on the recent peak date (21 August 2019), solar power output was only 27 million kWh (accounting for only 3,6% of total demand), the rest output still come from traditional power sources such as coal, gas, hydropower, etc.
In addition, solar power can only generate about 9-10 hours during the day, power system still has to mobilize traditional energy sources in the remaining time. Therefore, although renewable energy has made an important contribution, in order to ensure national energy security, traditional power sources still play a key role and need to be paid adequate attention to.
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Mr. Ha Dang Son – Director of the Center for Energy and Green Growth Research also asserted that the power source structure cannot be “imitated”. It cannot use a model of one country to apply to others. For example, RE strongly develops in Germany, however, if they do not connect to the grid of other Europe nations, their energy security will face many difficulties.
According to experts, solar energy is a dispersed energy source. Therefore, along with large-capacity solar power projects, it is necessary to promote the rooftop solar power development because this is a type of dispersed power reducing transmission costs, investment costs for Electricity industry and especially increasing efficiency, reducing electricity bills for customers.
Currently, in the draft of Encouragement Mechanism for solar power development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is proposing remaining the rooftop solar power price until the end of 2021 at 9.35 UScent/kWh to encourage the development of this model. Along with creating favourable mechanisms and policies, the Ministry is developing standards, testing and verifying as well as promoting market conditions and pilot funding programs, etc. Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has launched a “Program of promoting rooftop solar power development in Vietnam” with the goal: 100,000 systems will be installed and operated by the end of 2025.