Only 10% of total capacity is sold

Solar power is a low-emission renewable energy source that has been growing rapidly in recent years with rapidly decreasing costs and increasing production of solar panels. The installed capacity of solar power will also increase rapidly in the future. This is a great opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce electricity generation costs.

Along with the growth of the solar panel manufacturing industry, the world is also witnessing the strong development of battery storage technology with new innovations that improve the capacity and reduce the cost of storage batteries. This is the basis for the stable development of renewable energy in the future.

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The mechanism for rooftop solar power is still unclear. Photo: Thach Thao

With the commitment to Net Zero by 2050, Vietnam also needs to continuously develop renewable energy in a sustainable manner. Investors in solar energy feel that it is useless, ineffective, and unprofitable, which can pull back the achievements of previous renewable energy development and cause difficulties in future development orientations.

However, at present, the rapid development of solar power has caused many serious consequences for the power grid and system dispatching, causing grid instability due to having to coordinate many sources of power that change rapidly according to weather fluctuations while Vietnam has almost no significant power storage facilities.

Therefore, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has set up a pilot research program so that self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power can be sold to the grid with a generation capacity of no more than 10% of the installed capacity.

This can be said to be a fairly high level of safety to be able to operate the grid with 3 connection and payment options along with 3 ways to calculate electricity prices. The payment and calculation options for electricity prices are all oriented towards the simplest possible calculation and payment method and basically it also shows the factor of "holding the knife by the handle" of the electricity buyer.

Not yet ensuring fairness and win-win harmony of interests

Firstly, the draft proposal is for the whole country while solar power has very clear regional factors. When it comes to research and piloting, it is also necessary to evaluate and consider regional factors so that the incentive mechanism for developing rooftop solar power can better support the system for different regions and help develop decentralized power systems with higher autonomy for different regions.

Second, about confirming the surplus electricity output to the grid. The proposed plan of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (PA2) is more advanced than the other two plans. However, PA2 only converts 10% of the surplus electricity output to the grid, the remaining 90% of the surplus electricity output to the grid is sold by EVN at the current regulated price at the time of generation to other electricity customers. The feeling is that it still does not ensure fairness and harmony of win-win benefits!

Third, we should consider confirming the surplus electricity output to the grid 100% (full) in a "rice-based" way by dividing it into many levels. For example, the electricity purchase price = 10% of surplus electricity output x full price + 20% of surplus electricity output x (full price x 50%) + 30% of surplus electricity output x (full price x 20%) + 40% of surplus electricity output x (full price x 5%). This methodology makes investors feel that they are investing to make a profit, not doing charity by sending 90% of surplus electricity output to the grid without charging money.

Fourth, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed 10% as a fairly low level and also to prevent the strong development of small investors in investing in solar power generation. However, because solar power has a large generation time and is not very clearly generated by the hour. The Decree should set out an incentive mechanism for storage and transmission to the grid during peak hours in the evening to gradually develop the ability to invest and store electricity for self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power. Investing in storing 10% of capacity to shift generation hours is highly feasible, especially in an era of rapid development in battery storage technology.

Fifth, the Decree should also create a vision for the future development of renewable energy with the potential to increase the percentage of grid-connected capacity along with investments in storage technology as well as system dispatch technology.

Sixth, requiring the development of rooftop power connected to the national grid to comply with the allocation in the national plan will certainly encounter many difficulties and obstacles because in reality, the allocated capacity in the 8th power plan has basically run out, and there is not much room for development. In the immediate future, it is necessary to encourage development according to the grid's dispatching and reception capacity.

Proposal to increase sales volume

Propose to allow commercialization in the development of rooftop solar power. To make the investment feasible and harmonize the interests of people, businesses and the state, it is recommended to increase the output sold to the grid by about 30% and the operating price according to the electricity market price.

The Government should direct the Ministry of Industry and Trade to assess the impact of allowing excess rooftop electricity to be distributed to the grid when the Politburo has set a target of N-1 for Vietnam's grid system by 2025. Looking at the impact of system capacity on the grid, small-scale and distributed household-scale solar power systems (under 50kwp) have almost no impact on the stable operation of the regional and inter-regional grid system.

On the contrary, for industrial-scale solar power projects concentrated in industrial parks and clusters, the excess power output on the grid (midday hours) greatly affects the load curve, which will promote the increase of the California duck curve, which is detrimental to Vietnam's power grid system.

In addition, after December 31, 2020 until now, rooftop solar power installation activities are still going strong. According to data from the General Department of Customs, on average, Vietnam imports about 500-600 Mwp of PV Modules each year, and it is estimated that after nearly 4 years, the number of imported PV Modules will reach about 2,500 MWp. According to the 8th power plan, by 2030, the scale of self-produced and self-consumed solar power will be 2,600 Mwp.

The question raised for the Decree is that after the policy to encourage solar power was issued, what is the actual scale of the installed rooftop solar power projects (when there was no policy) and according to the scale registered in the 8th power plan? Is it true that the decree and policy have not been issued, so the actual scale has exceeded the quota?

Proposal for self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power sold to EVN at a price of 671 VND/kWh The Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed a plan for self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power sold to Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) at a price of 671 VND/kWh.