Vietnam: Odds shorten on dramatic build-out of offshore wind

Renewables-hungry Vietnam eyeballing competitive auctions

The pipeline of potential offshore wind projects in Vietnam has ballooned to 60 GW, giving credence to predictions total capacity could top 36 GW by 2045.

The draft PDP8 identifies 45 GW of potential projects in the central, south central and south east with 15 GW in waters off the south-west.

These include the 3.4 GW Thang Long off the south central province of Binh Thuan. Developer Enterprize Energy has started initial marine surveys and a 600 MW first phase is due online by the end of 2025.

Base case projections set out in PDP8 (see table) suggest offshore wind capacity will advance to 2 GW by 2030 before accelerating to 9 GW by 2035, 15 GW by 2040 and 21 GW by 2045.

A high case scenario has capacity reaching 3 GW by 2030 and 36 GW by 2045.

Renewables Consulting Group director Nick Chivers said Vietnam “could very well meet its high scenario target by 2030 if challenges in the market are addressed”. “Achieving this dramatic build-out of offshore wind will be heavily dependent on the first phase of developments succeeding in the near term,” he added.

Vietnam will need to address key challenges including financing, power purchase agreement bankability, grid constraints and data availability.

“Vietnamese PPAs are not considered internationally bankable and the country has a limited precedent for non-recourse financing,” Chivers said.

PDP8 defines offshore as capacity sited at water depths of more than 20 m so onshore forecasts include some near-shore projects, the government said.

Hanoi appears to have been more conservative in its analysis of offshore wind’s near-term potential than the World Bank and the Danish Energy Agency, which fed into the PDP8 planning with high case scenarios of up to 10 GW by 2030.