Vietnam offshore wind: where to from here?

> Asia’s fast-growing offshore wind market has been drawing significant interest amongst developers, investors and financiers from across the world. At the centre of this dynamic region, Vietnam, with more than 3,000 kilometres of coast line and huge unexploited wind power potential, is emerging as a potential new hot spot for the global offshore wind industry.

> In 2016, the Government of Vietnam updated its national master power development plan (Master Plan 7) setting out its vision for the power industry until 2030. Under this master plan, the Government took a big U-turn from its previous preference for coal and targeted that renewable energy projects, including small-sized hydro, wind, solar and biomass projects, would account for 9.9 per cent of the overall electricity capacity by 2020 and 21 per cent by 2030, generating 7 per cent of the nation’s electricity in 2020 and 10 per cent in 2030. In particular, Master Plan 7 sets a target of 800MW of wind energy by 2020 and 6GW by 2030. The next master power development plan (Master Plan 8) which is currently under development for the period up to 2045 could increase the wind energy target to over 11GW by 2025.

> In order to meet these targets, Vietnam’s Government has rolled out a series of regulations aimed at clarifying the legal framework and incentives for the development of renewable energy projects, including a competitive statutory feed-in tariff. These policy developments, combined with a decline in global manufacturing costs for the technology necessary to leverage renewable energy sources, have generated significant interest among prospective investors. > That said, while relatively smaller onshore renewable energy projects are moving ahead, there remain a number of key hurdles for the development of largescale offshore wind in Vietnam and it is likely that further regulatory changes may be needed to propel Vietnam into the group of regional leaders in attracting the international offshore wind community and significant capital and expertise required to make these projects successful. > In this report, we set out a brief overview of the Vietnam wind market, the key legal issues for investors and the challenges that they need to consider when investing in offshore wind in Vietnam.