In September 2010, the HCM City’s authorities decided to develop a project on solar electricity for local residents in Thieng Lieng hamlet in Can Gio District. The project, initiated in early January and completed on January 26, has brought electricity to 174 households in the suburb area. With the project, electricity has also been brought to the works of public interest such as the hamlet’s management board, a forest management station, a healthcare center, the Thieng Lieng Primary School, a customs station and a border control station.
However, experts say that the solar electricity projects that are running so far are just for “performance”. Solar energy projects still has not been developed on a large scale because the overly high investment capital is a deterrent to investors. To date, the solar water heater project remains the most successful project with the high growth rate of 200 percent per annum.
The door to the market open
Tuan An Energy Trade Company has invested two billion dong to build up a solar power system for an office building in Binh Tan District in HCM City which has the capacity of 70KW per day.
The door to the renewable energy market is now open. At the end of January, the US First Solar Group was granted a license to build a solar panel factory in Vietnam with a total investment capital of one billion dollars. Philips also plans to build a factory to build LED lamps that utilize energy saving technology in Vietnam. Experts say that this should be seen as a good sign for the renewable energy market in Vietnam because big foreign economic groups will bring modern technologies to Vietnam, and their appearance will make policy makers pay more attention to the field. Besides, big foreign groups will also help attract more foreign investors to Vietnam who will operate in supporting industries.
Red Sun, a Vietnamese company that also specializes in solar cells in Long An province, has also announced that it will expand its production scale. Chair of Red Sun Huynh Kim Tuoc said he does not feel the pressure of the competition from the US First Solar Group because the two factories will churn out two different product lines.
Tuoc said that Vietnam needs to pay more attention to technology transfer rather than research. In the production of solar cells, for example, while new technologies have been utilized widely in the world, Vietnam is still busy pursuing academic, scientific research. Meanwhile, it would be simpler to import technologies to utilize domestically.
In the production of solar water heater, the most important component of the product, the heating tube, is still being imported from China even though the technology is not too complicated. A tube production line now has the price of 700,000 dollar. However, many enterprises still cannot import the production line due to financial incapabilities.
The barriers that need to be overcome
Professor Dr Phan Hong Khoi from the Vietnam Science and Technology Institute said that there are many barriers that need to be overcome in order to improve the current situation.
The first barrier is that it is necessary to upgrade technologies. For example,, in producing LED lamps, the life expectancy of a lamp depends on the environment and technology, which explains why a lamp can only last for 10 years while another can last for much longer.
The second barrier comes from how clients discover new technologies. In many cases, though technologies bring efficiency in energy saving, environment protection and emission reductions, they still find it hard to find clients.
The production cost is also a big barrier for enterprises to conquer the market. Therefore, enterprises should understand that high initial expenses can bring long term benefits.
The story about the consumption of laptops and mobile phones is a typical example. When they first appeared on the market, they had very high sale prices. However, later, together with the development of technologies, the products have become cheaper. The same scenario may happen with solar cells, wind solar or LED lamps, and the products will become more popular and cheaper.
Meanwhile, experts have urged government agencies to apply reasonable policies to encourage foreign investors to transfer technologies. They said that currently, foreign economic groups come to Vietnam just to take full advantages of low investment costs and investment incentives, while they do not pay attention to technology transfer.
Every year, Vietnam imports 10 billion dollars worth of technologies, while the technology export turnover remains very modest.
Source: Thoi bao Vi Tinh Saigon