Three provinces in southern Vietnam might have functional wind farms as early as 2020.
Reuters reports that Superblock Pcl, Thailand’s biggest solar energy firm, will earmark THB56 billion (US$1.76 billion) to establish wind energy facilities in Vietnam. These farms, when finished, will be capable of generating some 700 megawatts of power.
Superblock Chairman Jormsup Lochaya shared with the news source his company’s detailed plan to invest in Vietnam’s wind energy industry on Friday, February 2. According to Lochaya, the project will have two phases, the first of which is already underway.
In the first stage, Superblock is constructing three near-shore farms in Bac Lieu, Soc Trang, and Ca Mau provinces with capacities of 142, 98, and 100 megawatts, respectively. These farms, which collectively cost THB20.7 billion (US$654 million), could be operational by 2020, Lochaya estimated.
Reuters cited government data when revealing that at the moment, wind energy only contributes 140 megawatts to the national power grid. However, local authorities are looking to boost production to 6,000 megawatts by 2030.
A previous report by BMI Research shows that from 2016 to 2026, the country’s need for power will balloon from 144.4 terawatt-hours to 271.4 terawatt-hours. At the moment, a large portion of this is provided by coal-fired plants, but interest in alternative forms of energy has flared up from time to time.
Last year, a local conglomerate said it would invest US$1 billion to build scores of solar farms in the country. Wind energy projects have also occasionally popped up, but tend to fizzle out due to high overhead costs and low energy prices.
Superblock said it’s also looking into developing similar projects in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia after Vietnam. Thailand is currently Southeast Asia’s leading solar power producer with a capacity of more than 3,000 megawatts.
[Photo via Hanoi TV]
