A wind farm in Vinh Trach Dong Commune, Bac Lieu province, Vietnam. - The Straits Times/ANN
BAC LIEU, Vietnam, Jan 8 (The Straits Times/ANN): Near the southern tip of Vietnam lies Bac Lieu province, with its entire 56km coastline dotted with wind farms. The fishing and manufacturing hub is one of Vietnam’s renewable-energy pioneers as the country tries to reduce its reliance on coal and gas.
Bac Lieu began its sustainability journey in 2016 when it turned down a planned 3,600-megawatt (MW) coal power plant. Today, it has 10 wind farms – including two under construction – that account for about 660MW of wind power capacity.
Eight of these wind farms are nearshore – no more than six nautical miles (about 11km) from shore. The other two are inland. There are no offshore wind power projects planned in Bac Lieu.
The wind farms are seen as a major growth driver, as more than 60 per cent of foreign investment that flowed into the Mekong Delta region in 2020 and 2021 went into the energy sector.
There are already 84 wind power plants across Vietnam, with a total capacity of more than 3,980MW, in commercial operation.
Mark Hutchinson, head of the Global Wind Energy Council in Asia, estimates that another 2,000MW of wind power has been almost completed but is not yet connected to the grid.
The latest draft of Vietnam’s power development plan submitted to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in November 2022 states that the country will develop 28,480MW of wind power by 2030. This would be 1.7 times the total capacity of solar power planned for that year.
There are reasons for this optimism: With its 3,260km coastline, Vietnam ranks near or at the top in terms of wind energy potential in South-East Asia.
A 2001 survey conducted by the World Bank affirmed Vietnam’s huge potential to harness wind power, with more than 39 per cent of its land having an average annual wind speed faster than six metres per second at an altitude of 65m, which translates into a total potential capacity of 513 gigawatts.
Hutchinson says: “Vietnam has excellent wind resources, a long coastline to develop offshore wind farms and a significant industrial base that can act as a supply chain to the industry in both Vietnam and elsewhere in the region. Offshore wind alone can provide more than 150,000MW of technical potential.
"Unlike traditional sources like coal and liquefied natural gas, which are projected to face a surge in price and a dwindling supply in the coming future, wind power is a readily available resource in Vietnam that is not affected by the volatility of the global market.
“Therefore Vietnam can become self-sufficient energy-wise if it focuses on harnessing this resource.”
According to statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the provincial People’s Committees, about 81 per cent of the wind farms to be constructed in the south will be nearshore.
The reasons for this rush to erect nearshore windfarms appear to be manifold: They can cost half of what offshore wind farms would, but promise the same output. The annual average wind speed around nearshore areas is similar to that in offshore areas, according to a survey conducted by the World Bank in 2021.
Attractive feed-in tariffs of 9.8 US cents (13.2 Singapore cents) per kilowatt-hour for offshore and nearshore power offered by the government before November 2021 also accelerated the pace at which investors built wind farms that could be plugged into the national grid.
But nearshore wind farms have also affected the livelihoods of fishing communities. Since fishermen are not allowed to fish in the sea area allocated by the local government to wind farms, and more than half of the fishing boats in most of the Mekong Delta are suitable for fishing only near the shore, fishermen have seen their incomes dwindle.
In Bac Lieu province, more than 60 per cent of the fishing vessels in operation belong to this vulnerable category.
At the area where the Nha Mat Canal enters the sea, small fishing vessels were lined up along the canal right in the middle of the fishing season during a visit by The Straits Times in October 2022.
Vuong Van Quang, a Chinese Vietnamese who has more than 32 years of experience in nearshore fishing, said he could fish for only about one month between January and November 2022.
“I used to take my boat to wherever there were fish, even to other provinces. But in recent years, all the way from the Ganh Hao wind farm (in Bac Lieu) to Tra Vinh province about 230km away, the wind farms located within 10 nautical miles of the shore have made it difficult for us to fish,” Vuong said. “Our nets would get tangled in the turbines and we would have to cut them open. That happens almost every day.”
Fishermen used to be able to work about half the year and earn three million dong (S$172) daily about three to four years ago, said Mr Huynh Chuong, chief of the fishing club of the Vinh Thinh Commune in Bac Lieu. Now, some fish only one or two months a year and earn less than 300,000 dong per trip. Their income sometimes cannot cover the cost of fuel.
In Bac Lieu’s Vinh Trach Dong Commune is Vietnam’s first nearshore wind farm, with 62 wind turbines enabling a generating capacity of 99.2MW.
Eng Do, a 53-year-old resident there, told ST that baby mudskippers living in the mangroves in this area have been his main source of income. But since the wind farm was installed in 2013, his catch has dwindled.
Bac Lieu has plans to offer fishermen alternative livelihoods and reduce the number of nearshore fishing vessels, Mr Ngo Nguyen Phong, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, told ST. However, because of financing issues, the timeline for this programme is unclear.
The 2021 World Bank report recommended that the Vietnamese government develop a marine spatial plan with clear environmental legal frameworks before issuing marine space leasing contracts.
The report warned that “nearshore projects may pose a high risk of significant adverse environmental and social effects in the nearshore environment”. -- The Straits Times/ANN
