Vietnam's new energy plan, to be finalized in the coming weeks, will focus more on solar farms and less on coal and natural gas.
Vietnam is revising its energy plans to focus more on large solar farms and less on reliance on coal and natural gas. The fast-growing economy now aims to get 16% of its energy from the sun—more than triple its earlier target of just 5%. A draft of the new policy outline, likely to be finalized in coming weeks, scraps plans to build offshore wind turbines, instead building more onshore wind capacity, rooftop solar and energy storage. Offshore wind and new gas projects have proven expensive and difficult. Large solar farms are cheaper and easier to build. But Vietnam also is emphasizing expansion of large solar farms to meet soaring demand for power generation. It forecasts it will need more than 211 gigawatts of energy by 2030 as its economy grows, 40% more than its previous estimate and more than Germany's current total capacity. "This reflects both an overall increase in potential power demand by 2030 and the fact that LNG (or liquefied natural gas) projects are not on track to be completed by 2030," said Giles Cooper, a partner at the…