Group Says U.S. Utility Will Build $13 Billion Offshore Wind Project in Vietnam

Vietnamese officials said a U.S. utility company plans to develop a $13 billion, 4-GW offshore wind farm that would be sited off that country's central province of Binh Thuan.

Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade in a statement issued July 29 said AES Corp., a Virginia-based utility that operates in 15 countries, is behind the project, though AES did not immediately confirm the report.

A 4-GW installation would move Vietnam closer to its goal of having 11.7 GW of offshore wind power generation capacity in service by 2030. The country today has about 4 GW of operating offshore wind. In addition to the 2030 goal, officials have said they want to have 66 GW of offshore wind in operation by 2045.

Vietnam-U.S. Energy Conference

The ministry on Friday said AES submitted a letter of intent to develop the offshore wind project to Vietnamese officials during a recent U.S.-Vietnam energy security conference in Washington, D.C. The ministry's statement on Friday also said officials discussed nuclear energy, along with energy storage and hydrogen production, for Vietnam during the meeting.

Vietnam, like many other countries, wants to increase its development of renewable energy resources and reduce its use of coal-fired power. The country's government last year said it wants its economy to be carbon-neutral by 2050.

The ministry this week reportedly asked government officials to cancel at least 14.2 GW of planned coal-fired power projects that were included in a draft of a national master power development plan.

Renewable Energy Partnerships

Vietnam's renewable energy sector earlier this week received a boost when France-based HDF Energy entered a partnership with Saigon Asset Management Corp. (SAM) for development of hydrogen production and renewable energy projects in the country. That partnership would develop what HDF calls Renewstable" renewable energy projects.

Vietnam has shown great ambition to decarbonize its electrical grid," said Damien Havard, founder and CEO of HDF Energy. HDF Renewstable and Hypower will accompany this ambition. HDF is proud to collaborate with SAM to make green hydrogen happen in Vietnam."

The collaboration with HDF Energy on [the] Renewstable portfolio aligns with our sustainable and responsible energy investment philosophy," said Louis Nguyen, CEO and founder of SAM. We believe Vietnam can accelerate toward its net-zero emission target using its own available renewables resources."

NovaWind, the wind power arm of Russia's state-owned energy group Rosatom, also this week signed a cooperation agreement with Vietnam's An Xuan Energy to develop a 128-MW wind farm in Son La province. It would be NovaWind's first Vietnamese project. The company, which began operating in 2017, has a portfolio of about 1.7 GW of wind power capacity either in service or under development in Russia.

Corio Generation, part of Macquarie Green Investment Group, last month signed a joint development agreement with Fecon, a Vietnam-based construction and infrastructure firm, to build a 500-MW offshore wind farm off the coast of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

-Darrell Proctor is a senior associate editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).

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