Vietnam

The coronavirus epidemic continues to batter the global economy, including the solar industry, but falling demand during lockdowns has brought negative energy prices as well as helping drive record solar generation, amid less-polluted skies.

Although the energy price recovered this week, ultra low levels driven by bumper solar power generation on a sunny weekend in Germany reportedly put further pressure on the business case for conventional energy.

Hanoi has set new feed-in tariff rates for utility-scale, rooftop and floating PV projects, ending a long period of policy uncertainty. The government has announced the new rates, which are broadly in line with industry expectations, roughly 10 months after the expiration of its old tariffs.

The Asian Development Bank says developing countries in Asia and the Pacific should consider developing their own solar industry supply chains as the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed their over-reliance on China to carry through the energy transition.

The US solar company says its production lines in Ohio, Malaysia and Vietnam have thus far been able to carry on operations. The company says measures have been taken to protect its workers at all of its premises.

Longi Solar has dramatically stepped in to take over fellow Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang Yize New Energy Technology, which operates 7 GW of module production capacity and 3 GW of cell facilities in northern Vietnam.

The transition from a feed-in tariff scheme to an auction mechanism may take longer than expected in the Southeast Asian country, as the Ministry of Industry and Trade is considering maintaining FITs of $0.0709/kWh to $0.0769/kWh for projects that secured approval before Nov. 23, 2019, if they come online as scheduled by the end of this year. According to law firm Lexcomm Vietnam, there are currently 3 GW of projects with licenses.

China, Hong Kong and Vietnam are the top three nations exporting batteries to India. Chinese imports were worth $773 million in the last fiscal year with Hong Kong shipping $267 million worth and Vietnam $114 million, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The move, by Taitong Industry Ltd, will come as a fresh blow to the Chinese module manufacturer, which twice failed to go public – in the U.S. and China – and whose project development business suffered a battering in China when Beijing reined in subsidies in 2018.

The generous tariff is considered crucial by the Vietnamese government to maintain high levels of development in the rooftop segment until 2021.