A 35 MW (48 MW DC) solar power plant in Vietnam's Dien Loc commune in Thua Thien Hue province has become the 'first' large-scale PV project that has been put into operation in the country. Construction on the project had commenced in January 2018 with 300 domestic and foreign engineers and it cost a total of VND 1,000 billion ($43 million), according to TTC Group.
The 35 MW TTC Phong Dien solar power plant has been realized by Vietnam's TTC Group and its electricity arm, Gia Lai Electricity JSC (GEC), of which the International Finance Corporation owns 16%.
In 2019, the owners of the project hope to expand the capacity of the plant by 29.5 MW. Sharp Corporation of Japan had joined the project as a module supplier earlier in 2018 (see Sharp Backs 48 MW PV Plant In Vietnam).
GEC is also working on another TTC project with 49 MW capacity in Gia Lai province, which is scheduled to become operational in the last quarter of 2018, it said at the inauguration of the 35 MW plant. The 49 MW project will cost around VND 1,406 billion ($60 million).
All these projects will benefit from an incentives scheme for large scale solar power plants that the country announced in April 2017. The scheme is applicable for all such projects switched on by June 2019 (see Vietnam Introduces Solar Incentives). TTC Group had previously shared with Bloomberg its plans to invest $1 billion to have 1 GW PV capacity in the country. Already, this year it wants to have 10 to 12 solar parks in operation (see TTC Group Planning 1 GW In Vietnam).
According to a September 2018 report by consulting firm Rystad Energy, government incentives have spurred Vietnam's large-scale solar PV project pipeline to 20 GW, with most of it expected to come up in Dak Lak and Ninh Thuan provinces (see Vietnam Large Scale PV Pipeline Reaches 20 GW).