On 12 October, the EU Energy Initiative Partnership Dialogue Facility (EUEI PDF) in collaboration with the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV) of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), hold the second stakeholder workshop to present important findings and recommendations for the further development of net-metering policy for Vietnam’s promising PV landscape. These findings have resulted from a thorough assessment of net-metering policy and technical options conducted by the EUEI PDF’s international team of consultants in the last four months.
As one of the findings, experts shared their view that the integration of solar rooftop into the national grid could be done smoothly without affecting the grid’s operation capacity. The statement has been further backed up by computer simulation in Hoa Cam industrial park in Da Nang City. In industrial parks, installations of rooftop PV are expected to develop first since there are large rooftops and strong electrical connections already available.
“We are glad that in this exercise, the EUEI PDF has been able to provide technical capacity building, and to show that there was a very high potential for the integration of solar rooftop electricity production. This is important in the context that ERAV has taken steps to shape a policy for both small rooftop with a net-metering policy and large rooftop with the circular of 12 September 2017 on Solar Project Development. And we hope the net-metering regulation in particular will be refined as needed in the years to come, so as to fit fully with the market development”, said Mr. Alejandro Montalban, Head of Cooperation and Development of the EU Delegation at the workshop.
Vietnam has extensive resources to develop solar energy. It is estimated that the technical potential of solar energy is 300 GW (*). The Vietnamese government also has set ambitious targets to install 12 GW of solar by 2030. This year, the new legislation on supporting schemes for solar power development including a FiT for grid connected projects and net-metering scheme for rooftop systems at the same price level of 9.35 US cent/kWh has been a really important milestone, as it lays out framework to attract private investment into the solar energy development.
As part of the EUEI PDF’s support, a two-day training for utilities, system operators and technical staffs of the regulatory agency (ERAV) was organised on 10 and 11 October. The training covered technical and legal aspects important for the grid integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.
The training session and workshop round off an intensive project of technical advice and consultation conducted for ERAV by the EUEI PDF. Working with international technical consultants with long-standing expertise in renewables policy design and renewables integration, Meister Consultants Group and Energynautics, the project provided detailed advice on measures for ERAV to take to encourage and enable the uptake of rooftop solar. This included an analysis of the country’s
law for the implementation of a net-metering policy, a review of standard purchase power agreements, the assessment of technical integration limits in a selected grid area, and even addressed issues around grid Code requirements for rooftop solar PV.
(*) Source: Vietnam Energy Outlook 2017
