Vietnam To Slash FIT Rates For Rooftop Solar Projects

With the interest in rooftop solar PV growing in the country with every passing day, thanks to the very attractive feed-in-tariff (FIT) rates Vietnam offers, the national grid is coming under pressure. And to deal with this, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) is now set to lower the FIT, reported local media.

Quoting the Director of the Ministry's Electricity and Renewable Energy Department Hoang Tien Dung, media reports stated that the rooftop solar FIT will be lowered to $0.052 per kWh to $0.058 per kWh, lower for commercial systems and higher for residential.

This would be a drop from $0.0838 per kWh that has encouraged the segment to grow to over 9.5 GW till January 5, 2021 (see Vietnam: Rooftop Solar Installed Capacity Exceeds 9.5 GW). Earlier the rooftop PV tariff was $0.0935 per kWh.

The new tariff—arrived at after assessment by foreign consultants—reports claimed, will be effective from April 1, 2021.

Dung apparently stated that even though reduced, the tariffs will still be lower than what people pay for electricity from the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) grid, and they will be encouraged to use solar power for captive consumption so as to further ease the pressure on the grid.

According to VnExpress.net, in 2020 the authorities had to cut a total of 365 million kWh solar power and in 2021 they plan to increase it to 1.3 billion kWh to avoid straining the transmission and grid infrastructure that has been unable to keep up with the growing amount of solar power here. Encouraged by the attractive FIT rate of $0.0935 per kWh for projects coming online by June 30, 2019, Vietnam saw 82 solar projects with a total of 4.46 GW getting grid connected till the deadline (see Vietnam: Over 4 GW PV Grid Connected By June 2019).