Vietnam - International Partnership for Wind

Prevalent winds along portions of Vietnam’s 3,200 km coastline, coupled with increasing support from the Vietnamese government through policies like the Renewable Energy Action Plan, are making the Southeast Asia country increasing appealing to wind energy developers. The government’s encouragement of small power producers from the private sector and non-governmental organizations to participate in the country’s energy future is also encouraging for new energy development.

Vietnam is believed to have some of best wind resources in mainland Southeast Asia. The country has several wind projects under development however no megawatt-scale wind plants have been built to date. To accelerate wind development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade recently awarded a contract for wind resource assessment services to a joint venture consisting of AWS Truewind, GPCo Inc. of Canada, and the Energy Conservation Research & Development Center (Enerteam) of Vietnam. The project, funded through a grant from the World Bank, started in January 2008.

The initial task of the multi-phase project employed AWS Truewind’s site screening process to locate promising wind project sites. The systematic approach, which utilizes wind resource maps also developed by AWS Truewind, locates the most attractive sites for utility-scale wind development over a large region based on an array of parameters. The site screening process is very flexible in terms of data inputs enabling clients to hone in on sites that meet all of their renewable energy project development goals. To date, three sites in coastal and interior highland areas have been selected. GPCo, which is coordinating the overall project, is now working with local partners to install the meteorological masts.

As a global leader providing powerful solutions to the renewable energy industry for 25 years, AWS Truewind is proud to be a part of this international team, and a part of Vietnam’s energy future.