Global renewable energy developer EDF Renewables and VinaCapital Group, one of Vietnam’s leading investment management companies, have launched a partnership with plans to invest more than US$100 million over the next three years in the country’s renewables market, a regional leader in solar energy.

VinaCapital, which is based in Ho Chi Minh City and has over US$3.7 billion in assets under management, says the new partnership will back the group’s SkyX Solar company in carrying out plans to further develop rooftop solar and energy distribution projects for commercial and industrial customers with a peak capacity of 200 megawatts (MW).

“The launch of SkyX Solar in 2019 is just one of our initiatives in the sector,” says Don Lam, co-founder and CEO of VinaCapital. “In a very short span of time, it has grown to become a leading player in the commercial and industrial rooftop solar market in the country.”

“EDF Renewables, a subsidiary of EDF Group, is one of the world’s leading renewable energy companies, so I could not be more pleased that they have chosen to partner with and invest in SkyX,” adds SkyX Solar CEO and founder Samresh Kumar. “Their expertise and resources will enable us to further expand and bring our world-class solutions to even more customers in Vietnam.”

“The potential for renewables in Vietnam is enormous,” notes Yalim Ozilhan, Southeast Asia director of EDF Renewables, adding that demand for low-carbon sources of energy from commercial and industrial customers was set to increase in the years to come.

In early 2021, EDF Renewables, with more than 2,210 billion Vietnamese dong (US$98 million) of investment, secured a deal to develop two wind power plants in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak with a total capacity of 70MW. The French company aims to produce a total of 50 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2030 for global markets and considers Vietnam as one of its strategic markets in Asia.

Last year, Vietnam experienced a boom in rooftop solar installs that coincided with a connection deadline for subsidies. More than 9GW of rooftop solar was installed in Vietnam in 2020, including 6GW in December alone.

At present, the Vietnamese government is drafting a new price mechanism for rooftop solar to replace the existing feed-in-tariff table. The new mechanism, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, will use a self-consumption rate based on the ratio between electricity consumed on site and the total installed production capacity.

Under this model, the electricity seller would be able to sell most of the electricity generated to consumers and the remainder back to the national grid via the state utility Vietnam Electricity. This means commercial and industrial energy users would be allowed to self-generate and, where possible, sell their surplus to the grid.