Renewable energy to reach 600,000 rural households

Vietnam has an ambitious plan to bring renewable energy to around 600,000 households in rural, mountainous and out-of-the-way coastal areas by 2020, according to the Institute of Energy.

Statistics show there are around one million households with four million people nationwide having no access to electricity supply. Vietnam is looking to supply power for all the rural households, 600,000 of them using renewable energy like wind, solar and biomass power, Hoang Tien Dung, director of the institute, told a seminar in HCMC on Thursday.

Vietnam has put renewable energy on its power development agenda, and it will account for 6% of the nation’s total power output by 2030. Renewable energy output capacity will amount to an estimated 13,000 megawatts within the next ten years, according to the master power development plan 7 which was approved by the Government in July this year.

Dung said Vietnam had huge potential for renewable energy but this source of environmentally friendly power made up a slight 2% of the country’s total output of 100 billion kilowatt hours.

Speaking on Thursday’s seminar, scientists and investors involved in renewable energy projects said the country could face an imbalance between energy supply and demand in the next few years as a result of volatile global energy prices, the saturation by 2020 of local hydropower sources, and limited gas and coal supply.

Le Van Khoa, deputy director of the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade, stressed the need to rapidly develop renewable energy to ensure the nation’s energy security in the future.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has sent to the Government a renewable energy development strategy until 2030 with a vision towards 2050, which, if approved, will help remove institutional and policy hindrances to renewable energy research and development in Vietnam.

Trinh Quang Dung, director of SolarLab, said the country would need to set out to build a new-energy industry responsible for development renewable energy sources as soon as possible.

“Vietnam may import energy after 2015 and depend on global prices,” Dung added.

Binh Thuan Province expects to generate total wind power output of 5,475 million kilowatt hours which is worth US$430 million given the price of 7.8 U.S cents per kilowatt hour.