Banking on the potential for rooftop solar, Vietnam’s government has decided to continue the feed-in-tariff (FIT) rate of $0.0935 per kWh for this segment, said Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), following the approval granted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT).

Previously, the revised tariff being considered was $0.0838 per kWh. The ongoing rate of $0.0935 per kWh for 20 years will be effective for systems installed till 2021 to encourage rooftop solar deployment. Vietnam News referred to EVN data to say Vietnam’s installed rooftop solar power capacity is expected to reach 2 GW by the end of 2020.

EVN had proposed to the government to continue the $0.0935 per kWh FIT rate for rooftop solar that has now been approved. MOIT has advised EVN to ensure that rooftop solar power systems connected to the grid do not cause overload on the existing electricity system.

The $0.0935 per kWh was the FIT rate for large-scale solar power project development in Vietnam till June 30, 2019 and resulted into over 4 GW capacity being added to the grid. Now, the government has proposed to bring it down to $0.0709 per kWh for ground mounted projects (see $0.0709/kWh For Large-Scale Vietnam PV Projects). A decision on this is still pending.

Vietnam is officially en route to moving towards a competitive auction based large scale solar PV deployment in the country after Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan issued a notification to this effect (see Vietnam Switching To Auctions From Solar FITs).