News Clipping Archive - Page 1091 of 1294

Renewables

11 July 2019

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Thailand

Although oil and gas remain PTT’s core competencies, the national energy firm is trying to revamp its business and diversify into renewable energy.

Technology disruption is invading the fossil-based energy world, and renewable sources are showing strong potential as alternative fuels for power generation.

At 1.4 trillion baht, PTT is the largest company by market capitalisation on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

Chansin Treenuchagron, president and chief executive, discussed disruption issues with the Thai media during site visits to Aspern Smart City in Austria and Grenoble in France.

He said PTT plans to apply smart city principles in the Eastern Economic Corridor of Innovation (EECI), a site in Wang Chan Valley owned by PTT.

How will renewable energy disrupt PTT’s business and how will PTT deal with it?

Renewable resources are becoming mainstream energy, while fossil-based fuels are being improved to be higher-priced products, not mass fuels. PTT has a plan to add more value to low-margin bunker oil to be marine and premium diesel fuel and commodity-grade petrochemical polymer to be specialty and engineering plastics. PTT is committed to expanding the non-oil segment, such as the Cafe Amazon network, across Asia. As a result, PTT’s oil and gas business will be scaled down in terms of operating costs and added to digitalised operations.

PTT is planning to expand businesses both horizontally and vertically.

PTT has seen the domestic market become nearly saturated as cleaner fuels approach rapidly, so PTT is expanding every business segment across Asia.

PTT has six core business units, covering oil and gas, petrochemicals and power generation, which will be PTT’s core competencies in the future.

Some fossil-based resources are expected to be depleted, such as gas in the Gulf of Thailand, so PTT plans to shift away from gas-based petrochemicals to crude oil under the Map Ta Phut Retrofit project, which has begun construction. The project will operate in 2022.

What new businesses does PTT plan to go into?

PTT is always seeking other energy-related businesses based on our capabilities in the biochemical field. PTT has operated in biofuels for more than a decade.

PTT is expanding its expertise in areas such as production facility and infrastructure development into the smart city and pharmaceutical fields, which need the cooling system used to process liquefied natural gas waste.

The waste can be used to produce high-value food and hygienic products.

For the cooling system, PTT has trialled tulip planting with cool wastewater for many years and could potentially use PTT’s Rayong facilities to grow tulips on a mass scale.

How far has PTT proceeded in new business expansion?

Many plans are being discussed and feasibility studies are being conducted. Some are awaiting final decisions from PTT’s business partners.

For the long-term outlook, PTT is developing the EECI to be an innovation and research town and to house a new subsidiary, Robotics Ventures Co (ARV), which specialises in tailor-made robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).

The EECI will be a community of scientists and researchers. The project is located at Wang Chan Valley in Rayong, adjacent to Kamnoetvidya Science Academy and Vidyasirimedhi Institute — PTT’s educational institutions.

The EECI will soon become R&D infrastructure. Construction for the first-phase facility broke ground in February.

This project is expected to be a turning point for the PTT group of companies because PTT will transition to the innovative-based business, together with ARV, another express method for new development of robotics and AI for PTT.

ARV is set to be a corporate venture capital firm to search for startups. The company has so far teamed up with two startups, one a robotics provider and the other a digital platform for property big data.

How will PTT prepare human resources for the transition period?

PTT recently reshuffled 64 high-ranking executives to capture this new trend. PTT gave the executives a grace period of six months to prepare before the effective date.

Two weeks ago, PTT revised its business direction and increased its investment budget for the next five years. The 2019 budget was revised on June 20 from 70.5 billion baht in the previous plan to 103.7 billion baht.

PTT has quintupled its five-year investment budget for technology, innovation and engineering to 34.44 billion baht from 6.74 billion baht in the previous plan.

Some downstream and administration spending is being trimmed down.

Hundreds of research jobs have yet to be applicable for commercial purposes because there is little avenue for researchers’ aspirations to be realised and to bring laboratory successes to supermarket shelves.

PTT wants to fill the gaps between researchers and marketing men.

Energy Cooperation

Indonesia, China hold international energy forum

11 July 2019

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Indonesia

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Indonesia and China held the 6th Indonesia-China Energy Forum (ICEF) in Beijing on Wednesday in a bid to push foreign direct investment into both nations.

The forum was also held to facilitate Indonesian and Chinese business players in the field of energy to explore business potentials of both sides.

“The 6th ICEF was fruitful to develop domestic energy sufficiency in each country,” Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Director General of Electricity, Rida Mulyana noted in a statement received here on Wednesday.

During the forum, Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan and those from China’s National Energy Administration and National Development and Reform Commission held discussions to boost bilateral cooperation in the energy field.

Minister Jonan brought along 40 delegation members comprising government officials, experts, and businesspersons, who met with their Chinese counterparts and held discussions on several topics pertaining to the energy sector, including green electricity and renewable energy as well as traditional energy resources, such as oil, gas, and coal.

The 5th ICEF was organized in Jakarta during which both sides had inked a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of energy. Related news: Indonesia, China discuss transfer of energy technology at 6th ICEF

Electricity/Power Grid

Myanmar produces about 3,200 megawatts of electricity daily

10 July 2019

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Myanmar

Myanmar is now generating about 3,200 megawatts of electricity daily, according to Ministry of Electricity and Energy.

The maximum production was reached to 3,078 megawatts on May 5, 2019 and it increased to 3,178 megawatts on July 8.

Yangon Region is topped with consuming of 1,409 megawatts of electricity (over 44 per cent of the entire production) daily and Mandalay Region followed second with 526 megawatts of electricity (over 16 per cent). Nay Pyi Taw is consuming 128 megawatts of electricity (over 4 per cent).

Other states and regions are spending over 1,217 megawatts of electricity (over 38 per cent of the entire production).

It is less than 250 megawatts in compared with the highest electricity production from January to May this year.

At present, Myanmar is producing about 3,800 megawatts of electricity and it will be increased to another 3,000 megawatts within three-year time, said Win Khaing, Union Minister for Electricity and Energy.

Energy requirement is increased about 19 per cent annually and Myanmar is needed between 300 and 500 megawatts more annually. It is needed to set short and long term plans to meet the energy requirement, he said.

According to National Electrification Project (NEP), Myanmar is planning to provide electricity across the nation by 2030.

Others

Can venture philanthropy turn on Southeast Asia to clean energy?

10 July 2019

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ASEAN

Born into one of the world’s richest families, the Rockefellers, whose vast wealth was amassed from the American oil boom in the late 1880s, Eileen Rockefeller Growald is a venture philanthropist focused on using her family’s money to help the world switch to clean energy.

The 67 year-old founded the Growald Family Fund with her husband, Paul Growald, a little over a decade ago. “Climate change was, and is, the number one threat to all of the things we care most deeply about,” she told her audience at the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network Conference (AVPN) 2019 in Singapore last week.

In her keynote address, she said that her family “came to see that everything, including world peace, was threatened by the dramatic change in the earth’s climate.” She was in Singapore to share her experience on how venture philanthropy can aid the clean energy transition in Southeast Asia, the only region in the world where coal—the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions—is gaining share in the energy mix.

Venture philanthropy is relatively new to a region where, historically, charitable donations rather than the strategic allocation of funding have been used by wealthy family-owned businesses to tackle social and environmental problems.

Rockefeller Growald explained the difference: “Whereas charity provides generosity to individuals and institutions in response to their immediate needs, philanthropy addresses the root causes of major problems.”

But even with the vast financial clout of the Growald Family Fund, the challenge of moving Southeast Asia from fossil fuel dependence to clean energy doesn’t get much bigger. And it is the job of Athena Ronquillo-Ballesteros, the fund’s regional climate finance director, to work out where to—as Rockefeller Growald put it at the AVPN Conference—“invest and spend money wisely.”

“Giving money—charity—doesn’t change the world. We need to be change agents and address the root drivers,” Ronquillo-Ballesteros told Eco-Business on the sidelines of the AVPN Conference.

But changing the course of energy systems is not easy in a region like Southeast Asia, where corruption, vested interests, powerful state-owned energy monopolies and fossil fuel subsidies have left renewables largely in the dark; Southeast Asia has been slower to embrace renewables than the world’s poorest continent, Africa.

Ronquillo-Ballesteros is hopeful but realistic about her mission.

“The depressing thing is that Asean [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] is so business-as-usual,” she said. While governments talk about their commitment to the Paris Agreement and achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, the rhethoric does not match their energy and infrastructure plans.

If we are serious about stopping carbon-intensive infrastructure, the finance side of the conversation has to shift significantly.

Athena Ronquillo-Ballesteros, climate finance director, Asia, Growald Family Fund

For instance, Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, has committed to increase its renewable energy capacity to 23 per cent of total energy resources by 2025, in line with the Paris Agreement. But by that year, the country’s state-owned utility, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), plans to have doubled coal use.

Vietnam, which has the highest rate of renewables growth in the sub-region, plans to increase coal’s share of the energy market from 33 per cent to 56 per cent by 2030 to meet the country’s soaring energy demands.

Building a business case

The biggest challenge, says the forthright Filipina, is to make the business case for the clean energy transition, and help unlock stubborn policy and regulatory hurdles “without putting people in danger or burning relationships.”

She is all too aware that the best intentions of philanthropists based in the West are not often well received by countries that were colonised in the not-too-distant past.

Her fund’s strategy is to use data, analytics, and research—through local entities—to inform and influence policymakers on what the low-lying archipelagic region stands to lose from climate change and, more importantly, what it stands to gain from making the transition to clean energy sooner rather than later.

One example is the study Power Trip: Southeast Asia’s journey to a low carbon economy, produced by Eco-Business, which identified the drivers, barriers and opportunites that affect Asean countries on their energy transition journeys.

One gap that needs to be filled, says Ronquillo-Ballesteros, is an energy transition thinktank to advise energy ministers on the opportunities to decarbonise their electricity sectors while continuing to grow their economies. At the moment, there is only the Jakarta-based Asean Centre for Energy—but its predominant focus is fossil fuels.

Another challenge is to push the region’s banks to align with the Paris Agreement. Only three banks in the regional bloc, Singapore’s DBS, OCBC and UOB, have made any sort of commitment to stop financing coal—following prolonged pressure from Market Forces, an Australian green group funded partly by a group aligned with the Growald Family Fund.

“If we are serious about stopping carbon-intensive infrastructure, the finance side of the conversation has to shift significantly,” said Ronquillo-Ballesteros, who played a key role in negotiating the finance side of Paris Agreement in 2015.

One powerful argument against investing in coal is that it will become a stranded asset, losing value over time as the market shifts towards renewables. But, as Ronquillo-Ballesteros pointed out, it’s hard to talk about stranded assets with Southeast Asian banks as governments subsidise coal, propping up the sector.

“If everything is heavily subsidised, you [the banks] have nothing to lose. With subsidies in place, only the government will lose money,” she said, adding that the Singapore banks could show real leadership by encouraging their Southeast Asian peers to echo their commitments.

But even with finance and the best available technology to help renewables grow in Southeast Asia, the problem still boils down to politics and regulation, she said.

The leaders of Indonesia and the Philippines, Joko Widodo and Rodrigo Duterte, respectively, were elected on promises of poverty alleviation and bringing light to dark areas of their countries. “How do we show them that they can meet electrification promises by avoiding coal and diesel, through [clean alternatives such as] geothermal and solar?” asked Ronquillo-Ballesteros.

To influence such individuals, it’s important to know who influences them, she said.

Until this point, it’s hard to argue that their role model has been Japan, supposedly one of the world’s clean energy champions but whose banks are the biggest funders of coal-fired power plants in Southeast Asia.

But as the likes of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation tighten their climate policies and climate protests gather steam on occasions such as the recent G20 Summit in Osaka, it’s not impossible to imagine them pulling out of coal projects in countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines—the most important countries in Southeast Asia’s energy story—in the near future. If, of course, a strong business case is presented for doing so.

What is clear is that the Growald Family Fund needs help to achieve its ambitions. “The problem is so big that we can’t afford to work in silos,” said Ronquillo-Ballesteros. “We see a big opportunity in working with Asian philanthropists and high net-worth individuals to create change together.”

“Yes, we have to keep giving to the poor and those who don’t have access to education. But we want them [Asian philanthropists] to think bigger and better to address the root causes.”

Others

Yeo Bee Yin: Malaysia has no immediate plan to impose carbon pricing

10 July 2019

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Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): Malaysia has no immediate plan to impose carbon pricing on industry players, because there are other prior actions that can be taken to reduce carbon emission, such as improving energy efficiency on existing processes before such regulation is introduced, Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin said today.

“More than 50% of electricity [in Malaysia] is [consumed] by buildings. If we actually focus on these lower hanging fruits [of improving consumption efficiency], it is much more efficient.

“Of course I have a lot of environmental regulations coming in. But my thought is simple: Do not make things unreasonably difficult for industry players for the sake of the ideal,” Yeo said here today at the World Economic Forum’s roundtable discussion on Malaysia’s energy landscape.

On environmental regulation for businesses, she referred to the proposed Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act, which she hopes will be presented to the Parliament early next year at the latest.

Malaysian government data shows that in 2011, carbon dioxide accounted for 72% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emission, of which nearly half is produced by coal-heavy electricity generation sector.

Coal

Vietnam Needs to Break Its Addiction to Chinese Coal

10 July 2019

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Vietnam

When it comes to the effects of global climate change, Vietnam is one of the world’s most at-risk nations. Rising sea levels threaten to inundate both the Mekong and Red River Deltas, potentially impacting tens of millions of people. Vietnam is also one of the fastest growing economies in the world, growing by 7.1 percent in 2018. While it has benefited from investors’ anxieties over growing U.S.-China trade war, Vietnam has been on the up and up for the past several decades, led by its export-driven manufacturing sector. As an emerging market, the country is now seen to have great promise; however, Vietnam must take steps to balance this growth with a potential future prosperity that is inextricably linked to its environmental security. The country’s energy sector will play a key role in this, as it is necessary to facilitate Vietnam’s appetite for growth as well as a key determinant of the nation’s willingness to tackle climate change.

At the Paris climate talks in 2015, the Vietnamese government pledged to reduce its emissions by eight percent by 2030. The pledge falls under the projected linear trajectory and will prove challenging to marry with the country’s economic growth targets. To feed its growing energy demands, Vietnam has turned to coal-fired power generation, with the government expecting coal usage to increase fivefold by 2030. The use of coal has increased Vietnam’s national carbon emissions and is worsening air quality in many of its major cities. Hanoi is now comparable to Beijing in terms of air pollution, with its annual average air pollution being four times higher than the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization.

In many ways Vietnam mirrors the People’s Republic of China in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Chinese Communist Party opted to dismiss environmental concerns in its obsessive pursuit of economic growth targets. Only recently has China realized the incipient consequences of its policy decisions and begun to mitigate them. Vietnam is at a crossroads. It can either learn from the mistakes of its neighbour to the north or fall into a similar trap of unsustainable growth and environmental degradation.

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Conveniently, Vietnam holds tremendous potential to utilize renewables instead of dirty fossil fuels. Vietnam has an estimated solar potential of six to 10 times what the United States currently has installed. The government has already made promising moves in this direction by introducing favorable policies such as purchasing power agreements and tax incentives that can encourage foreign investment into the country’s renewables sector. It is also piloting a promising new technology, floating solar cells, which leverage the country’s sizable existing hydro-electric infrastructure. Vietnam possesses natural endowments that could enable it to become a global leader in the solar energy.

And yet, despite its capacity for a revolution in renewable energy, the Vietnamese government is moving forward in two directions, with a continued focus on coal. In addition to its environmental and human health issues, Vietnam’s growing dependence on Chinese coal imports also presents important geopolitical questions over the country’s future energy security. As part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has made significant investments into the energy sectors of countries across Asia. According to a report by the World Resources Institute and Boston University, over 60 percent of those investments have gone toward fossil fuel projects, while only 6 percent have gone toward renewables. Through constructing new energy infrastructure, especially coal-fired power plants, China is building its soft power over neighboring countries.

China’s significant investments into Pakistan’s energy grid provide a clear example of how capable Beijing is of leveraging the surging energy demands of neighboring countries to exert greater influence over their governments and economies. While Chinese coal is alluring as a cheap and flexible power source, the Vietnamese government must also be cautious about affording China too much control over its national grid infrastructure.

Vietnam’s primary alternative to Chinese coal is renewables. Renewable energy will allow it to feed its growing demand for power in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner, while also allowing for greater autonomy over its national infrastructure. In other sectors, such as telecoms, emerging economies have demonstrated a remarkable ability to leapfrog traditional technologies and embrace new ones. If Vietnam can successfully do this with its energy sector, it could achieve a sustainable growth trajectory that would be a model for other countries to follow. In order to achieve this, Vietnamese government must do something that most governments struggle to do — place the interests of its future above the fast rewards of the present.

Brian Malczyk is the Executive Director of the Center for Development and Strategy.

Tim Robinson is the Editor-in-Chief at the Center for Development and Strategy.

Renewables

Vietnam: Power, Energy, And The Affect Of Recent Trade Agreements EU Vietnam Free Trade And Investment Protection Agreement And The Comprehensive And Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement

10 July 2019

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Vietnam

Vietnam has had major stressors placed upon its power and energy grid for years, and it is only accelerating. At a recent April, 2019 conference on renewable energy in Ho Chi Minh City, experts noted that annual energy consumption in [Vietnam] had risen by 10 per cent in recent years, and the country was at risk of facing power shortages in the 2020s. Several factors have had an impact on this event a 2018 Harvard University study dubbed, “a crisis of success”. The major contributing factor was inefficiencies in the utilization of energy resources and infrastructure. Over time, these inefficiencies have compounded the problem Vietnam faces now with their entry into the European Union—Vietnam Free Trade (EVFTA) and Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) agreements. Luckily, those challenges may be alleviated if Vietnam changes their regulatory environment and embraces a new operating paradigm based on a global trade perspective. The transition may at times be turbulent, but necessary for Vietnam to achieve robust, sustainable development to meet their future needs.

Renewable Energy under EVFTA and CPTPP

Both the CPTPP (Chapter 20) and EVFTA (Chapter 13) require the parties to mitigate any damaging effects to the environment by trade practices and to incorporate any other treaties the parties are signatories of into the agreements. As Vietnam and the other parties of both the EVFTA and CPTPP are signatories to the United Nations Paris Agreement of 2015, this means Vietnam is required to reduce its traditional coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner or renewable energy sources. The EVFTA and CPTPP specifically mention renewable energy as the preferred alternative, and the parties all agree to promote trade to that end.

Vietnam has been making strides to address their energy utilization situation such as the Power Development Master Plan for the 2011-2020 Period with the Vision to 2030 (revised PDMP VII). PDMP VII, for example, sets out to increase energy supply from solar power from the current negligible rate to 0.5% by 2020 and 3.3% by 2030, or, 850MW solar capacity by 2020, increasing to 12GW by 2030. PDMP VII is coal-centric, which is counter to what both the EVFTA and CPTPP call for. One reason for the coal-centric approach is that it is established, known, and cheaper—it is the path of least resistance—which is one reason why Vietnam does not place tariffs on imported coal from the US, but it does place a 20 per cent tax on its own domestic offshore natural gas (which is by-far a cleaner alternative). PDMP VII also sets forth the goal of universal connectivity to the national power grid for all of Vietnam by 2030. It is a lofty goal, but it is achievable. The best chance of success for the 2030 goal is to restructure the regulatory environment to favor and exploit renewable energy sources. PDMP VIII is the next evolution for Vietnam’s energy strategy (slated for year-end 2019) and—keeping with the global investment mind-set—Vietnam should have a blend of private and public sector representation on that advisory board to ensure CPTPP and EVFTA renewable requirements and opportunities are fully integrated.

Against this backdrop, how can the EVFTA and CPTPP help Vietnam achieve sustainable energy development? Concerns from the private sector have always plagued Vietnam’s regulatory framework. Permitting, risk-allocation, land use impediments, financing, and investment protection have been major causes for project derailment in the past. The regulatory environment has been the biggest hindrance to successful exploitation and integration of renewable energy. However, Solar Power holds particular promise.

Solar Renewable Power

Solar power (according to PDMP VII) is to provide the second-largest amount of renewable energy in Vietnam by 2030—at 3.3 per cent. That figure should be adjusted higher with the incorporation of a more aggressive renewable plan in PDMP VIII. On a macro-level, solar farms are becoming more and more prevalent in Vietnam’s southern regions with most of them being developed by foreign investment. Major investors in Vietnam in the approval, construction, or completion stage include
German ASEAN Power, B.Grimm Power Public Co Ltd, Trina Solar, Schletter Group, and JA Solar, to name a few. Twenty-five solar farms have signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with EVN, not to mention another 221 projects are awaiting approval, with a combined 13,000MW of potential output. Reuters, Inc. suggests that Vietnam’s electricity sector will be bigger than Britain’s by mid-2020s.

EVFTA and CPTPP Impacts on Solar Sector

The driving force behind this level of investment so far has been the CPTPP (notably Japan and Korea); however, with the recent enactment of the EVFTA, further investment and expansion is a realistic expectation as there are no foreign-ownership restrictions placed on investors in those agreements. Furthermore, the European Union—Vietnam Investment Protection Agreement (EVIPA) grants specific safeguards for investors regarding the free transfer of capital based on foreign exchange convertibility as well as dispute resolution governed by international arbitration rules. These have been points of contention in the past for EU investors. On a broader scale, Vietnam, the EU, and the CPTPP signatories will all benefit as reduced tariffs and duties on the machinery and hardware to produce solar facilities will make it more cost-effective to develop that sector. Large-scale investment should be noticeable in the immediate future, and should be the definitive driver after five years when Vietnam removes restrictions on local-content and domestic partnering requirements in the EVFTA. Engineering services from the EU to support renewable infrastructure will also thrive as restrictions on that service in Vietnam are relaxed, promoting technical expertise and experience exchange and cooperation. These services will be especially crucial in upgrading and enhancing Vietnam’s grid capacity to maximize renewable energy integration into it.

Vietnam is making progress on changing their regulatory framework for renewable energy utilizing input from the private sector. An example is the latest change to the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) regulations for connectivity to EVN national grid. Up until 30 June 2019, there was a flat FIT of US $0.0935/kWh regardless of size or scope of project. The low FIT coupled with high investment costs in newer technologies has always been a point of contention for private developers. As of 01 July 2019, the FIT system was revamped and broken-down by type of solar project and zones of irradiance.

The regional scheme is determined by annual levels of irradiance and is broken-down into four regions. Regions with higher irradiance are imposed a lower FIT while remote regions with lower irradiance are imposed a higher FIT. This is a direct result of government responding to private investors’ concerns.

Rooftop Solar PV (less than 1 MWp)

The FIT schedule also applies to smaller-scale solar rooftop development. According to Vietnam Electricity (EVN), 1,800 customers, including offices, businesses and households, are installing rooftop solar systems with a total capacity of 30.12 MWp. In Ho Chi Minh City, EVN has installed rooftop solar systems with a total capacity of nearly 1,130 kWp and is continuing to deploy other systems. EVN general director indicated this amount was far below the potential of Vietnam, and directly attributed the reason to a lack of specific regulations about electricity purchases when households connect their solar power systems to the national grid. The previous flat FIT applied to rooftop solar generating less than 1 MWp as well, but was a convoluted regulatory situation on how-and-who-gets-paid-when. Now, new rooftop solar constructed or installed on or after 01 July 2019 that generates less than 1 MWp has the option of: 1) negotiating their own price between buyer and seller (as long as the project is not connected to EVN national grid) or 2) accepting the FIT schedule for the region it is located in and connecting to the EVN grid.

This is a major change and development for the solar market. The Direct Power Purchase Agreement (DPPA / PPA) allows for individuals or organizations to install rooftop solar projects and sign their own buy/sell contracts among other individuals or organizations without connecting to the EVN national grid. Any excess power generated may be sold to EVN at the established FIT for the region. This can have an enormous impact on the load capacity of the current EVN grid by reducing demand on it.

The rooftop solar sector will be a key part of the puzzle in rectifying Vietnam’s energy inefficiencies. With EVFTA and CPTPP countries enjoying reduced or no tariffs on hardware and other products to support the rooftop solar sector, coupled with the regulatory reforms, it should only be a matter of time before there is a PV panel on every residential and commercial rooftop in Vietnam.

Summary

Vietnam has been struggling with efficiently growing and sustaining its energy and power infrastructure. The regulatory environment has traditionally been one of the major hindrances to private investors in infrastructure development. Although there is always a certain amount of uncertainty in any project of this nature, both the public and private sectors would serve their communities greatly by coming to a reasoned solution that suits both. There has been notable progress by Vietnam on this regulatory-front, such as PMDP VIII and the revised FIT and DPPA. Hopefully there will be much more to come in the latter-half of 2019 and into 2020. The CPTPP and EVFTA agreements have been (and will be) a major factor in Vietnam’s infrastructure development goals. Utilizing those agreements and advice and input from the private sector, Vietnam’s power and energy situation will be poised to efficiently and effectively capitalize on its enormous potential—especially with renewables.

Electricity/Power Grid

Jonan encourages PLN to study China’s electricity network system

10 July 2019

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Indonesia

Beijing (ANTARA) – Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Minister Ignasius Jonan encouraged the management of PT PLN to study China’s electricity network system that is more effective and efficient, so it is available to people at affordable prices.

“Friends should learn a lot here. Why? Here, the proportion of energy lost, known as shrinkage, reaches some six percent, while ours is at 9.2 percent,” he told ANTARA after attending the 6th Indonesia-China Energy (ICEF) Forum in Beijing on Tuesday night (July 9).

PLN incurs losses owing to the energy lost during the process of transmission of electrical energy from sub-stations to customers, or so-called shrinkage.

With shrinkage of merely six percent, China is able to offer electricity to consumers at much cheaper prices than those in Indonesia, with shrinkage of 9.2 percent.

“This is what we encourage. Why cannot we emulate them? ‘Lah wong’ the technology used is the same,” the former transportation minister noted.

Jonan believes that a three-percent reduction in network shrinkage in Indonesia, from nine to six percent, will help to lower electricity tariffs in Indonesia or perhaps be similar to that in China where prices are affordable and the supply is smooth, so blackouts are rare, disparate to Indonesia.

The minister pointed out that China optimally utilizes all its existing energy potential, including wind, geothermal, nuclear, gas, and coal, to produce electricity. In spite of having abundant coal production and high-quality calorie content, China continues to import it from Indonesia.

“China’s coal production reaches three billion tons annually, but the yearly requirement is 3.5 tons, so 500 thousand tons is from us. We own 600 thousand tons of production,” he noted.

However, in terms of quality, coal products in Indonesia are less as compared to China since the land structure in mainland China is older.

At the ICEF, Jonan also highlighted the possibility of studying more modern renewable energy technologies in China.

“Several of our ‘grid’ systems are called ‘smart grids,’ so if we start large ‘renewable’ plants that use water, geothermal, and wind sources, we are ‘confused,’ as the transmission control system for our distribution is not ready,” the alumnus of the Faculty of Economics of Airlangga University (Unair) Surabaya explained.

ICEF is an Indonesia-China bilateral forum held every two years. The 5th ICEF was held in Indonesia in 2017. At this year’s ICEF in Beijing, Indonesia had sent at least 50 delegates from the ESDM Ministry, PT PLN, PT PGN, PT Pertamina, and others, to meet with partners from China on July 8-10, 2019.

After attending the ICEF, the Indonesian delegation, led by Jonan, met with several Indonesian citizens at the Wisma Duta Indonesian Embassy in Beijing to provide insights into national energy.

During a meeting facilitated by Indonesian Ambassador to China Djauhari Oratmangun, the ESDM Ministry played several videos on the availability of energy across the archipelago, interspersed with a question and answer session with Jonan.

“I have met the Chinese ambassador in Indonesia. I encourage graduates from here to take part in Indonesia, as there were many from the West and Japan,” Jonan noted.

News Clipping

Building a business case

Renewable Energy under EVFTA and CPTPP

Solar Renewable Power

EVFTA and CPTPP Impacts on Solar Sector

Rooftop Solar PV (less than 1 MWp)

Summary

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