Major renewables developers gather pace for Vietnam

The renewables market in seek-to-go-green Vietnam keeps getting busier with bold moves from leading international investors, developers and partners who are ramping up their investments in the country’s clean energy transition.

World’s fourth-largest renewable energy producer

EDP, Portugal’s largest utility, announced Friday it will step up investment and spend 25 billion euro ($27 billion) over four years to nearly double its renewable energy capacity to 33 gigawatts by 2026. In its strategic plan through 2026, EDP said 21 billion euro would be invested by its wind and solar unit EDP Renewables, also called EDP Renovaveis or EDPR - the world’s fourth-biggest renewable energy producer - and 4 billion euro would go directly to electricity grids.

As part of the ambitious investment, the giant plans to install 1.2 GW of new capacity in the Asia-Pacific region, through its Singapore-based renewables subsidiary EDPR Sunseap.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that EDPR has been sounding out investors, including sovereign wealth funds, to take a stake.

Just after the Portuguese giant’s announcement, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC disclosed it would invest 1 billion euro (more than $1.06 billion) to purchase a stake in EDPR, around 5% in the world’s fourth-largest one, also to help EDPR accelerate growth in renewables and energy transition.

In December, EDPR Sunseap CEO Pedro Vasconcelos told Reuters that his corporation was eyeing Vietnam, Australia, and north Asian economies to expand its utility-scale growth capacity.

"We see more and more Vietnam and Thailand really growing in terms of industrialization," Vasconcelos told Reuters. "So the ability to work in these countries and do large-scale decentralized generation is indeed an important factor for our growth."

In September, EDPR Sunseap acquired two solar projects in Vietnam’s south-central province of Ninh Thuan for $284 million, doubling its operational capacity in the country. The seller was Vietnamese firm Xuan Thien Group.

EDPR Sunseap said the transaction was the first step in the duo’s cooperation to jointly explore opportunities in Vietnam, which is seeking to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

France’s GreenYellow bets on Vietnam

French renewable energy transition player GreenYellow and the Ocean Packaging Factory signed a power purchase agreement with a capacity of 4.125 megawatts-peak this January. The latter is a subsidiary of Ocean Minerals Joint Stock Company, one of the key enterprises in Thanh Hoa province, north-central Vietnam.

GreenYellow Vietnam of the French company in late November acquired the Vietnamese subsidiary of French independent power producer Qair as well as its 70% stake in an operational 49.5-megawatt solar farm in Binh Dinh province on Vietnam’s central coast.

“With this deal, we can manage self-consumption contracts as well as large-scale energy projects, especially with the direct electricity purchase and sale mechanism,” said Sebastien Prioux, CEO of GreenYellow, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The acquisition is part of GreenYellow’s desire to expand its presence throughout Southeast Asia. The buying price was not disclosed, while GreenYellow Vietnam said the deal meant it had reached a total portfolio of 150 MWp of solar power generation capacity in Vietnam.

Norway eyes offshore wind developmen

Erling Rimestad, state secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during his meeting Wednesday in Hanoi with Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Dang Hoang An, said Norway is looking forward to sharing experience and cooperating with Vietnam in offshore wind power.

The two officials agreed that in the coming time, the government, businesses, and investment funds in Norway should consider support for Vietnam to continue its efforts to invest in research and implementation of green energy projects such as those in offshore wind power and hydrogen production.

For stronger bilateral economic ties, Rimestad said he hoped the two countries would exchange more high-level visits and collaboration in industry and trade.

Danish giant CIP focuses on central Vietnam

Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and its arm Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP) are currently investing up to $10.5 billion in developing the 3.5 GW La Gan offshore wind project in Binh Thuan province next to Ninh Thuan. The project is envisaged as Vietnam’s largest offshore wind farm in Vietnam.

In their portfolio, CIP and COP also have other multi-GW offshore wind projects in other provinces. CIP is hoping to develop large-scale offshore wind projects and transmission lines in partnership with state utility Vietnam Electricity.

COP launched a new office in Hanoi during Danish Crown Prince Frederik’s working visit to Vietnam on November 1-3. The Crown Prince was accompanied by executives from many Danish energy firms and management funds.

Vietnam will export electricity to Singapore

Petrovietnam Technical Services Corp. is in talks with Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries to build a submarine power transmission line between the two countries toward Vietnam’s selling electricity to Singapore in the future.

The two companies reached a memorandum of understanding on February 10 for this transmission purpose, also aiming at developing Vietnamese offshore wind projects to export electricity to Singapore.

Petrovietnam Technical Services Corp. CEO Le Manh Cuong told The Investor he expected this export to start in 2030. He said his company and Sembcorp will invest in a 2.3-GW offshore wind farm in Vietnam for the purpose.