Coal-fired power to compose third of Vietnam electricity capacity by 2030

The government is expected to put Vietnam’s electricity generation capacity at 146,000 megawatts by 2030, of which 25.7% is coal-fired power.

Its long-discussed draft Power Development Plan VIII (PDP VIII) has been amended many times with different capacity estimates. The country targets net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. PDP VIII aims at the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2045.

The Government Office late last week announced Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh’s conclusions after a national conference on the plan on Friday. He concluded the participants had reached a consensus that the total generation capacity should be 146,000 MW by 2030.

The figure is down about 35,000 MW compared to the version submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) in March 2021. Meanwhile, the country’s peak capacity by 2030 is estimated at about 93,300 MW.

Of the 146,000 MW, 37,467 MW or 25.7% will come from coal-fired power, 23,900 MW is liquefied natural gas (LNG), 16,121 MW from onshore wind power, 7,000 MW from offshore wind power, and 8,736 MW from large-scale solar power. The current ratio of coal-fired electricity is nearly 44%, according to Vietnam Electricity (EVN).

Toward Vietnam’s net-zero goal, the power sector would focus on green energy transition and clean energy, while minimizing carbon emissions.

The Deputy PM requested MoIT to continue collecting opinions from cities and provinces, and urgently finalize the draft PDP VIII by April 25 for State Appraisal Council approval.

At the conference, he noted that the master plan put the country’s interest first to assure power security, making it impossible to approve all provincial proposals on their own generation capacity expansion.

A sum of the proposals put their total appeals at almost 520,000 MW, about 3.5 times higher than the national estimate. “The master plan cannot meet all the requirements of developers and localities with such a huge registration,” he noted.

Minister of Industry and Trade, Nguyen Hong Dien, told the conference that registrations and requirements from localities did not take national resources and national issues into consideration, while the ministry is taking an overall approach. “Therefore, the best plans are possible, not the most perfect.”

Embracing the country’s net-zero goal, PDP VIII promotes the use of renewable resources like wind and solar power, mentioning a shift from LNG-to-power projects to hydrogen.