Solar energy field hots up

Vietnam is backing renewable energy sources in its push to become an industrialised nation

IC Energy, a member of IC Holding (Vietnam), is building a 120 megawatt plant capable of  producing 2.4 million solar panels per year. The plant is on an 11.5 hectare site in Quang Nam province’s Chu Lai Economic  Zone.

The investor received an investment licence for the project last July and plans to go live with first 30MW manufacturing line late this year. The project will then become fully operational by the end of 2015.

Major thin-film technology for the plant will be imported from the United States or Europe while the company planned to bring in other equipment from Asian suppliers.

Hydraulic, coal-fired and gas-fired power plants remain the major suppliers of power for Vietnam. However, the country is now seeking to kick-start the use of renewable energy facilities like solar and wind power because of the environmental problems caused by the construction and running of hydro and thermal power plants, as well as rising fuel costs.

Renewable energy projects are also thought to have very high potential in terms of wooing hi-tech foreign power players to invest into the local energy market.

In late March, First Solar, Inc. broke ground on its $300 million production base in Ho Chi Minh City, which will produce  more than 250MW of thin-film solar modules annually. The project slated for completion by second half of next year will help the US firm meet its global target of expanding production capacity to 2.9 gigawatts by late 2012 from some 1.4 GWs this year.

The Vietnamese facility will also recycle First Solar’s panels.

Vietnam saw construction of its first solar panel production plant in early 2008, a project jointly developed by the Vietnamese Red Sun Energy JSC and  two other domestic partners.

The plant’s first phase went live in April 2009 and had a capacity of five megawatt peak (MWp) per annum which can produce solar panels of between 50Wp and 175Wp.

The investors plan to raise the plant’s annual capacity to 25MWp from this year. Forty per cent of its products will be supplied to the domestic market with the rest being exported to European and American  countries.