Green energy for Ho Chi Minh City: Why not?
Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has approved the Green Energy Program until 2015, which emphasizes the goal of developing “clean electricity” from new energy, renewable energy with a higher proportion of electricity capacity. 1% of the city’s total power consumption, equivalent to 48MW (according to the HCMC electricity plan, by 2015, the city’s total power consumption will be 4,800MW). Is this modest 1% goal possible?
According to Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, to successfully implement the Green Energy Program for the city by 2015, it is necessary to promote the development of renewable energy sources and encourage the use of new environmentally friendly energy. Not only that, it is necessary to promote communication and dissemination to the community to raise public awareness about economical and green energy use.
In addition, the HCM City People’s Committee emphasizes the application of management measures, techniques and science and technology to reduce energy consumption of equipment and facilities. And an essential element is the need to improve the efficiency of research, use and development of renewable and clean energy sources to protect the environment.
The Green Energy Program for Ho Chi Minh City also sets the target of saving electricity in the period from now to 2015, which is 2% compared to the commercial electricity output. Particularly in 2012, the saving electricity output will strive to reach 400 million kWh. It is known that in the period of 2007-2011, Ho Chi Minh City has implemented many energy-saving solutions such as: Saving more than 1,043 million kWh of electricity, accounting for more than 1.2% of commercial electricity output, equivalent to more than 1,000 billion. copper. Particularly in 2011 was the year with the highest city-wide electricity saving output of 391.3 million kWh, accounting for 2.5% of commercial electricity and up 76% over the same period.
The question now is whether the goal of developing a “green and clean energy” source of electricity capacity accounting for more than 1% (equivalent to 48MW) of citywide power consumption will easily become a reality. is not ? Are there any barriers to the development of “clean electricity” in the market and its application in practice?
With solar energy, according to statistics in Ho Chi Minh City, up to now, almost no State offices have used solar energy. Only a small number of households and businesses bravely use or invest in technology to produce solar-powered equipment.
Typically, at the end of April 2012, Intel Vietnam inaugurated a solar power system at the Chip Assembly and Testing Factory in Ho Chi Minh City Hi-Tech Park. The solar power system at Intel Vietnam is made from 1,092 solar panels and 21 converters capable of generating 321,000kWh of electricity and limiting up to 221 tons of CO2 emissions annually. This solar power system has a capacity of 200kWp, is the first and only solar power system of Intel in Asia and is the 6th largest of the 15 solar power systems of Intel worldwide. This is an important milestone in Intel’s commitment to raising the rate of clean energy use in Ho Chi Minh City, minimizing the amount of carbon emissions from the plant.
Previously, there was a project to build the largest solar panel manufacturing plant ever in Vietnam by First Solar Company (the leading company in producing solar panels. the sky of the US) started construction in March 2011 in the Southeast Industrial Park (Cu Chi district, Ho Chi Minh City) with a total investment of 300 million USD. First Solar was then forced to postpone the production and operation of the plant, in part because the Chinese-made solar battery is flooding the market.
Currently, the city has a power plant that uses renewable energy from the Go Cat landfill (Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City with a capacity of only 2MW. This is the first factory producing electricity from garbage, put into operation quite well. Since July 2005, many landfills have been planned to build more garbage generators with a capacity much higher than Go Cat landfill. Da Phuoc rubbish (Binh Chanh district) with a capacity of about 7MW, Dong Thanh landfill (Hoc Mon district) with a capacity of 7MW or potential as landfill millions of tons of rubbish in Phuoc Hiep 1 (Cu Chi district).
According to experts, the emission reduction in Dong Thanh landfill alone is nearly 2.4 million tons of CO2 if invested in a power plant. It is estimated that one wholesale market in Ho Chi Minh City emits about 50 tons every day. waste, of which 95% is organic waste, this is the source of raw materials for gas generation. The investment capital for a power plant project from waste is about 3-4 million USD. Remarkably, in addition to having more electricity sources, these projects also help to save garbage collection costs about VND 300 million / month.
Particularly, the projects of generating electricity from recovered biogas from animal wastes have low production costs but so far, only popular development and supply of electricity have been carried out at the family level. It can be said that focusing on renewable energy is a very necessary job, needing full attention to environmental factors to make this energy source cleaner.
Along with the goal of developing renewable energy sources, since the end of 2011, Saigon Industry Corporation, Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation, Neptech Company and YnS – OCBM Company (Russia) have cooperated to form set up a company specialized in manufacturing wind power equipment to supply wind power projects across the country and export. Currently, the company is testing three wind turbines using YnS technology of Russia with a total value of 4.8 million USD, of which 2 are located in Can Gio district (Ho Chi Minh City).
In April 2012, Cong Ly Construction – Trade – Tourism Co., Ltd proposed the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City to permit the implementation of a 200 MW wind power project with a total investment of 10,000 billion dong in Can town. Thanh (Can Gio district). According to the survey in Can Gio, the wind speed is over 7m / sec, suitable for developing wind power, creating more renewable energy sources for the city. If allowed to deploy, the company will install 125 wind turbines spanning 20 km along the Can Thanh beach, and wind turbines will be supplied and installed by GE Company (US). The construction period of this project is about 3-4 years. It is expected that the capital source for wind power project in Can Gio will also be lent by US Ex-Im Bank for a period of 22 years.
It is expected to take about 12 years for the company to recover its capital. The leader of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has asked this business to evaluate and report on additional ecological environmental impacts on Can Gio area and must be approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment before being approved by the City People’s Committee.
Experts are the biggest obstacle to having green energy for Ho Chi Minh City is the issue of electricity production costs and prices suitable with the competitive generation market or not? Because the investment cost for “clean electricity” sources such as solar, wind power, renewable energy, geothermal and biofuels … is actually quite high compared to the common ground of the market. The school, far beyond the financial capability, capital mobilization of investors while the ability to recover capital and profit is not an “one-off-one soon” thing.
This is one of the main barriers hindering development of green energy in Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore, to develop green energy for HCMC, the key issue is to reduce investment costs. In order to do that, it is not simply a 1% target for “clean electricity”, so Ho Chi Minh City needs to provide a more detailed roadmap for developing environmentally-friendly and necessary energy sources. reasonable support and preferential policies for investors who are motivated to pour capital into the “clean electricity” source to make Ho Chi Minh City become a pioneer in the application of green energy of the whole country.
