Solar panel, battery storage projects to take shape in northern Vietnam

Two energy projects are set to be launched in the northern province of Hung Yen, a neighbor of Hanoi, following an MoU recently signed by investors from Vietnam, China, and Singapore.

The consortium consists of Vietnam’s Newtechco Group JSC, Xi'an GSR Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd., headquartered in China’s Xi’an city, and Singapore-based investment fund Makara Capital.

The MoU, reached at an investment promotion conference late last month in Xi’an, China’s Shaanxi province, is expected to turn Hung Yen, which borders capital Hanoi into a clean energy hub in the future.

Under the document, investors have committed to conducting research and surveys, and to proposing locations for a 50GW solar panel manufacturing plant (75 hectares) and a 12GWh fast-charging station equipment and battery storage plant (25 hectares).

On this occasion, Hung Yen province and the consortium agreed to work on the sites for a green hydrogen plant with a capacity of 3 million tons per year and deploy small modular reactor (SMR) technology for power generation in the time ahead.

Founded in 2016, Newtechco aims to build an investment ecosystem across key sectors, including banking-finance, healthcare, education, renewable energy, residential real estate, and startups in fintech and proptech.

In Hung Yen, the company is conducting investment research for the 80-hectare Hung Yen Logistics Hub in An Thi district, and the Pho Hien Education Town, spanning around 600 hectares.

Last year, Newtechco and Makara Capital, along with Sakae Corporate Advisory, also from Singapore, announced investment research for Thai Binh Bio-pharma Industrial Park in the northern province of Thai Binh, the first of its kind in Vietnam.

Hung Yen is home to 2,371 valid projects, of them 1,755 domestic and 616 foreign, with a total registered capital of over $22.88 billion. It has 17 planned industrial parks covering a combined area of about 4,395 hectares, of which 10 are operational.