Wind power holds key to address Vietnam's sustainable energy strategy

Wind power holds key to address Vietnam's sustainable energy strategy

Investing in renewable energy sources, particularly wind power, is key to
address Vietnam's growing electricity demand and to ensure the nation's
energy security as well as green growth strategy. The successful path
towards this ultimate goal now depend on what policies and technologies
Vietnam will take on to make the nation's fully untapped potential a truly
reality.

The tapping potential

According to the World Bank (WB) research, Vietnam was found out as a
country with the largest wind resource potential, surpassing other Southeast
Asian countries including Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. The country's
potential of wind energy was estimated to be around 513,360 megawatts(MW),
approximately six folds higher than the forecasted capacity of the
electricity sector by 2020. The WB's study showed that 8.6 per cent of the
total land area in Vietnam has very high potential for the development of
large wind energy farms, while the figures for Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand
are 0.2, 2.9, and 0.2 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that onshore wind
would be one of quickest alternative sources of energy to develop, compared
to other targeted sources like supercritical coal, geothermal and nuclear
power plants. Wind is produced by the uneven heating of the earth's surface
by the sun. As long as the sun shines, there will always be wind, and
therefore, an energy source.

According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), a
total of 50 wind farm projects have been registered in Vietnam, but only
four with the total installed capacity of 159.2MW are generating
commercially.

Construction of Cong Ly Construction-Trade-Tourism Company's Bac Lieu Wind
Farm – the biggest among the four operating wind farms in Vietnam - started
on September 9, 2010. The offshore wind farm in the Mekong Delta province of
Bac Lieu, has 62 turbines, with the total capacity of 99.2MW, and an output
of 320 million kWh per year. The project has a total area of 1,300 hectares
with the total investment of VND5.2 trillion ($233.2 million) which comes
from the investor's pocket and government's funds. The first phase started
operation in May 2013, contributing 16MW to the national grid. In January
2016, all 62 turbines have been installed and put to use.

Second, Tuy Phong Wind Farm by Vietnam Renewable Energy in the central
province of Binh Thuan started operation with 20 turbines and a combined
capacity of 30MW in 2012.

Also in Binh Thuan, the $17-million Phu Quy Wind Farm, which was invested by
PetroVietnam Power Renewable Energy Limited Company (PV Power RE - a PV
Power subsidiary), has three turbines with a combined capacity of 6MW. It
came into operation in July 2012.

The most recent addition to the national grid was Phu Lac Wind Farm invested
by Thuan Binh Wind Power in Binh Thuan with a capacity of 24MW and the
investment capital of VND1 trillion ($44.8 million). The plant started
operation in September this year.

It is certainly seen that Vietnam's wind energy has not been tapped to its
full potential. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Energy
General Department, under the country's latest revised power development
master plan, Vietnam's total wind power capacity would increase to 800MW by
2020, 2,000MW by 2025, and 6,000MW by 2030.

Technology: key to the dream

While Vietnam is in the early stages of wind power development, the world is
making big strides ahead. According to the Global Wind Energy Council
headquartered in Brussels, as of the end of 2015, the total global wind
power capacity was 432.42GW, up 17 per cent on-year and, for the first time
in history, higher than that of nuclear energy. It is notable that many big
companies in the world are investing in developing wind power technology.

GE is one of these companies. By 2016, the company has invested $2 billion
into research and development in the field and has obtained capabilities to
meet customers' demands, be it for turbines, wind farms, or grid solutions.

It all starts with GE's Digital Wind Farm. The Digital Wind Farm ecosystem
begins with the wind farms themselves. Because the wind whips around the
turbines and terrain in unique ways, GE Renewable Energy has developed
technology that creates a digital twin of each turbine to model how to get
the most energy out of a given landscape before planting the iron in the
earth. The approach could improve a farm's energy production by as much as
20 per cent and generate $100 million of value over the lifetime of a 100MW
farm.

Plus, with its patented turbine technology, GE can be the game-changer
companies are looking for: the carbon fibre blades make for quieter,
lighter, and more efficient operation.

GE technology can help operate, monitor, maintain, and optimise wind power
plants. The WindSCADA system allows an accessible view into the plant's
performance thanks to plant and turbine-level output heat displays. It
allows operators to control turbines remotely and share data beyond the site
as well as to identify performance variations through advanced analysis and
reporting.

On the other hand, the PulsePoint software helps analyse drive-train
vibration data and detect SCADA data anomalies. It can help operators save
more than 10 per cent on annual maintenance costs through avoiding repair
costs, decreasing downtime, and increasing lifecycle output.

GE monitors plants through remote operations centres. At the moment, GE is
monitoring 8,500 operating turbines over the world, saving an average $7,000
on troubleshooting per turbine per year. The average return to service time
for faulty turbines is 6 minutes. With these technologies, GE enables
operators to manage their wind farms like a conventional power plant.

At the moment, GE has deployed more than 30,000 wind turbines with the
combined capacity of 50GW in 35 countries.

Some parts of GE's wind turbines have been produced in Vietnam. GE's
Vietnamese wind turbine production plant in Nomura Industrial Zone in the
northern port city of Haiphong is one of its most modern plants in the
world. The main product of the plant is the 60Hz wind turbine generator
which, along with other wind power equipment, is exported to the North
American market. The facility has an output of 1,000-1,500 generators per
year and it produces 50Hz wind turbine generators for local use.

Springboard for Vietnam

Vietnam has the chance to accelerate wind power development as GE has
brought in technologies as part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
with MoIT.

The MoU was signed in May this year on the occasion of US President Barack
Obama's visit to Vietnam. GE will utilise its global wind development
expertise and work with local developers to identify potential projects.
Furthermore, the group will support the implementation of Vietnam's national
target programme through local manufacturing of wind turbine equipment and
components at GE's Haiphong facility, plus collaboration with other local
suppliers.

The ultimate purpose of both parties, accordingly, is to develop a minimum
of 1,000MW of new wind farms by 2025. This represents enough energy to power
the equivalent of approximately 1.8 million Vietnamese homes.

A part of the MoU has been implemented in September this year with GE
signing a cooperation agreement with renewable energy producer Mainstream
Renewable Power to develop wind power plants in Vietnam.

Immediately responding to the agreement, in mid-November, these two big
players in the global renewable energy signed a cooperation agreement with
Phu Cuong Group to jointly develop, build, and operate Phu Cuong Power Plant
in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang.

The project is located just off the coast with a planned capacity up to
800MW and in the first phase, the project is going to have a capacity of
150-200MW. The developer is going to finish arranging the finances for the
first phase in 2018.

Besides wind power, GE expects to bring other technologies to Vietnam too.
Jérôme Pécresse, president and CEO of GE Renewable Energy, said that the
company can help Vietnam in a multitude of areas, including wind power
development, national grid connectivity and management to ensure the grid
operates more stably even in periods when wind power is not available.

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Link to Original Article:
http://nangluongvietnam.vn/news/en/nuclear-renewable/wind-power-holds-key-to
-address-vietnams-sustainable-energy-strategy.html

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com