Landville awaits take off

Despite receiving approval, wind farm owners are discouraged by the low feed-in tariff and complex procedures Photo: Le Toan

LandVille Energy, a subsidiary of South Korea’s LandVille Inc., is the project’s investor. In December 2011, this company proposed a hybrid project of wind and solar power in Ninh Thuan, with the total investment of about $500 million.

Vo Dai, Deputy Chairman of the Ninh Thuan Provincial People’s Committee, said that the project had met all the requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s (MoIT) Circular 32/2012/TT-BTC on wind energy development and power selling contracts.

If included in the master plan, Landville will move forward in the process, Dai added, noting that the project will have the total capacity of 140 megawatts. Other details about the project have not yet been announced.

Ninh Thuan is already home to 12 wind farms listed in the province’s development master plan. However, the majority are moving at a slow pace. For example, the Belgium-invested Phuoc Nam-Enfinity project was licensed in March 2011, with the total investment capital of $266 million. The investor has not yet completed the necessary procedures to kick off construction, despite the fact that the project was due to be put into operation in December 2012. Others including Impsa (Argentina) and Timur (Malaysia) have also failed to start work on schedule.

Other provinces nationwide that boast huge potential for wind power development are also in the same situation. A lack of specific incentive policies on the development of renewable energy is one of the main reasons for the sluggish implementation of these projects.

At the 2015 mid-term Vietnam Business Forum (VBF), VBF’s power and energy sub-group stressed that renewable energy is an optimal choice for Vietnam to meet the rising energy demand in the near future. As such, the country should create favourable conditions to attract investment capital in this field.

“We support the proposals by consulting units for the MoIT on increasing feed-in-tariff (FIT) for wind power, and simplifying procedures for registration and development of wind power projects,” said a representative of the sub-group.

Sigmud Stromme, chairman of NorCham, which represents Northern European businesses, also suggested that the country should increase FIT for wind power and simplify investment procedures, while applying the same policies on power purchasing contracts for biomass power and waste-to-power plants.