Off-grid Opportunities and Challenges in Vietnam

Vietnam has put a lot of emphasis on the development of the National Grid over the last decade, 96% of all households had access to electricity in 2009, and this increased to 96,4% in 2012. However there are still almost 550,000 households without access to the National Grid.

The objective of this survey is to screen off-grid communities and to evaluate renewable energy resources, technologies, and potential funding for their electrification. To reach this objective a desk survey has been executed, followed by a large amount of expert interviews with relevant stakeholders in the sector including many Government Representatives, private sector, financial institutions and Renewable Energy experts from institutes and businesses.

There is a strong need for an improved enabling environment, existing out of –but not limited to- a further developed policy framework that supports the (commercial) development of access to renewable energy. The electrification rates for off-grid areas are still far from the national target for 2020, a high number of off-grid households are scattered national wide (mostly located in mountainous areas and islands). There is a large number of RE project finance opportunities in Vietnam in case the business case is strong. The report also suggested that the capacity building and technology need more demonstrate in the follow-up phase.