The wind-power plant in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu, which is
among the largest ones in Southeast Asia, joined the national power grid
on May 29. It opens up a great opportunity to develop wind
electricity in both regional and national scale.
2012 is considered as an eventful year in the development of wind
electricity with 10 giant turbines installed in Bac Lieu sea and dozens
of other projects planned across the country, particularly in the Mekong
Delta region.
The construction of the plant, which
is bigger than the one in central Binh Thuan province, began on
September 9, 2010. The project covers 50 hectares of alluvial land with a
total investment of 4.5 trillion VND (214 million USD). It includes 62
wind turbines and has a capacity of 99MW, generating 400 million kWh per
year. And its 10th turbine was successfully installed on October 2,
2012.
Particularly, the wind turbines are installed
in coastal swamp areas where do not contain production land, thus local
residents are almost not affected by the project.
The project’s initial success offers a direction of developing wind
electricity for investors and local authorities. In the Mekong Delta
region alone, dozens of wind-power projects have been planned at
present.
Following this plant’s success, Bac Lieu
province has been allowed by the Government to expand its project to 10
wind turbines.
In the southern province of Soc
Trang, four wind-power plants are expected to be built in Vinh Chau and
Tran De districts with a total capacity of 300MW. Investment in a 200MW
wind-power plant in Can Gio district, Ho Chi Minh City, is also being
promoted.
In October 2011, the US Export – Import
Bank pledged to give a one billion USD loan to Vietnam to develop wind
electricity in Mekong Delta provinces from 2011 to 2015.
Vesta, the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world, signed an
agreement on planning and developing wind-power plants in Vietnam
with the Cong Ly Construction-Trade-Tourism Company – investor of the
Bac Lieu power plant – on November, 2012.
Earlier,
on September 26, 2011, the Government issued preferential policies on
investment in wind electricity (under the Decision No. 37/2011/QD-TTg),
with a number of content which facilitate the development of wind
electricity in both local and national scales.
According to General Director of the Cong Ly Company To Hoai Dan, the
World Bank conducted a detailed survey of wind energy in Southeast Asia
. And Vietnam has the greatest potential of wind energy among four
surveyed countries, namely Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Up to 8.6 percent of Vietnam’s territory is rated to be good or very
good for building large wind turbines, compared to 0.2 percent in
Cambodia, 2.9 percent in Laos and 0.2 percent in Thailand.
The total potential of Vietnam’s wind electricity is estimated at
513,360 MW, over 200 times more than the Son La Hydropower Plant’s
current capacity.
Forty one percent of rural area in
the country is favourable to build small wind turbines to serve the
economic development, whereas only 6 percent of that in Cambodia, 13
percent in Laos and 9 percent in Thailand is.
“Now
we can affirm that wind energy is an enormous potential of Vietnam in
general and of the Mekong Delta region in particular. And there are now
all favourable conditions to exploit it”, said To Hoai Dan.-VNA