HCM City has huge potential for developing solar power, especially rooftop. VNA/VNS.Photo Nguyễn Văn Việt

HCM CITY— The Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation plans to soon connect all rooftop solar power to the electricity grid.

Bùi Trung Kiên, its deputy general director, told Người Lao Động (Labourers) newspaper that to incentivise individuals and commercial entities to invest in rooftop solar, the corporation (EVNHCMC) has put up on its website registration procedures and conditions for connection to the national grid, the list of substations and lines that have not reached full capacity and details about how much rooftop solar power capacity can still be connected to the grid in each district.    

Now no substation faces an overload, and all its 638 22kv lines can be linked with rooftop solar systems in the city to release the latter’s capacity rapidly.

EVNHCMC is speeding up the upgrade of its medium-voltage grid to 110KV to increase its capacity to encourage more people to invest in rooftop solar.

As of now the city has 9,568 rooftop solar power systems.

In 2020-25 the country is expected to face a power shortage, and so the corporation is seeking to encourage rooftop solar.

Soon the installed capacity is expected to increase, especially systems with a capacity of 1MWp or more, as people take advantage of the Government’s incentives for rooftop solar.

EVNHCMC said renewable energy now accounts for 2 per cent of the city’s total capacity, but needs to be increased to meet the growing demand from socio-economic development and urbanisation.

The city has huge potential for solar power, especially rooftop, it said.

Government offices can install 152.95 MWp, factories, 1,471 MWp and homes, 145.88MWp.  

The World Bank estimated the city to have total potential of 6,300 MWp, and said rooftop solar could be developed rapidly with proper policies.  

As of the beginning of September there were nearly 50,000 rooftop solar power systems in the country with a total capacity of nearly 1,200 MWp. VNS