The ministry said that it had received many proposals aboutoffshore wind power surveying, including wind measurement, environmentalmonitoring and environment impact assessment, which would be served for theappraisal and approval of the location, area, coordinate, depth and time forcarrying out the surveying.
As of the end of August, the ministry received 55 proposals. Onlyone proposal was approved which was a wind measurement proposal by a domesticinvestor to install an off-shore wind Lindar station as a preparation for thefeasibility report of Ben Tre offshore wind power plant.
The proposals submitted to the ministry were estimated to have atotal capacity of 100GW and a total sea area of about 30,000sq km.
There were about 40 surveying proposals submitted to authoritiesof coastal localities, all of which were from domestic investors.
The figures demonstrated that offshore wind power was attractingsignificant interests of investors.
Statistics from the Institute of Energy under the Ministry ofIndustry and Trade, revealed 22 new projects with a total capacity of 51,650MWwere proposed to be added to the national planning in the northern regionrunning from Quang Ninh to Quang Trị. In the central and southern regions, 74new offshore wind power projects with a total capacity of 104,627 MW wereproposed.
The ministry said developing offshore wind power was appropriateto the orientation of sustainable marine economy development and the commitmentat COP26 to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
There were mixed opinions over allowing or not allowing organisationsand individuals to conduct wind measurement, geological and topographic surveysat sea, the ministry said, however.
The ministry proposed temporary halt on the surveying until aresolution about wind measurement, monitoring and geological and topographicalsurveys is issued.
The ministry also added that the existing legal procedures relatedto offshore wind power development remained complicated. Besides, there was ashortage of technical instructions about the monitoring area for each 1MWcapacity because each area would have different wind speed, density andtopography.
In addition, Vietnam had not had planning for sea areas withpotential for wind power development.
Under the national power development plan for the 2021-2030period, with a vision towards 2045, Vietnam targeted to increase wind powercapacity from nearly 4,000MW in 2022 to about 16,121MW onshore and nearshoreand 7,000MW offshore wind power by 2030./.