CMX Renewable Energy Inc. has applied for a license to build a 150 MW PV plant, costing an estimated USD150 million, in Vietnam’s Ninh Thuan province, just as the solar market is being stirred within the country.
It is an exciting prospect for Vietnam’s central province of Ninh Thuan, as Canadian energy company CMX Renewable Energy attended a meeting with Ninh Thuan’s People’s Committee to propose the large-scale project. It comes at a time when the Vietnamese government is showing signs of encouraging a larger PV market within the country, which has ample solar resources.
The plan put forth by the Canadian company is for a 150 MW site, which would cost approximately US$150 million. It has estimated that the full facility would take up 250 hectares, and has also made a pledge of giving 1 % of the total power generated to the local community free of charge.
Vietnam’s first large-scale solar PV plant is currently under construction in the country’s Quang Ngai province. The 19.2 MW plant marks the first steps in the direction of solar PV and is expected to be connected to the grid some time in 2017.
The growth of a PV market within Vietnam would make sense, as it has ample solar resources, with average irradiation of 5kwh/m2 per day throughout the country. In addition to this, the Vietnamese government is showing some motivation to increase the country’s PV capacity, recently setting a target of 840 MW of PV capacity by 2020, and now claiming that it is drafting policies to boost investment in the market.
CMX’s proposed 150 MW plant is not the only large-scale PV plant in the early stages of being developed, as Korean solar giant Hanwha is reportedly planning to build a 100-200 MW solar farm in Thua Thien-Hue, while First Solar has signed a memorandum of understanding with local Thien Tan Group for First Solar to supply its PV modules for the group’s development pipeline in the country.
Source: http://m.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/canadian-energy-company-eyes-150-mw-pv-plant-in-vietnam_100024405/
