Orsted steps up groundwork for $13.6 bln offshore wind plant

Danish wind power giant Orsted is speeding up preparations to build a 3,900-megawatt offshore wind power plant in the northern port city of Hai Phong.

Investment for the plant is estimated at between $11.9 billion and $13.6 billion.

Orsted, the world’s largest company in the wind power industry, is seeking to build the new project in waters about 14 kilometers southeast of Bach Long Vy Island and 36 km northwest of the Long Chau Archipelago.

A partnership between Orsted and Hanoi-based Vietnamese conglomerate T&T Group, launched last September, is aiming at a multi-gigawatt pipeline of offshore wind projects in Vietnam.

A third Orsted mission to Hai Phong, accompanied by Danish Embassy representatives, told city authorities that the Danish-Vietnamese partnership expects to start site surveys within 2023 so that the first phase of the mammoth project could be finished by 2030. They requested the city administration’s assistance in implementing their plans.

Hai Phong Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Tho said his administration stood ready to support the investors if and when they face difficulties during the preparation process.

Before the third visit, Hai Phong authorities had asked Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Chinh Minh to add the major project to the country’s latest power development plan, or PDP 8.

Orsted plans to develop the project in three phases, with 1,300 MW for each. The target completion time for each phase is 2029, 2035 and 2037.

The Danish-Vietnamese partnership has also met with officials of Ninh Thuan province to propose two offshore wind projects of 5 GW capacity off the coast of the south-central province. More than $16 billion is estimated as the total investment in the two wind farms.

Vietnam considers the development of offshore wind energy as one of the important steps in its planned transition from fossil fuels to green and clean energy as part of efforts to meet its carbon emission neutrality goal by 2050. However, no offshore wind project has been developed in the country to date.