The company wants to tap
the market with huge power demand for economic growth.
The multinational
conglomerate General Electric is teaming up with a partner to construct
large-scale wind power plants in Vietnam with
a total investment of $1.5 billion.
The company recently
signed a partnership deal with the Ireland-based Mainstream Renewable Power
Ltd. to develop 1,000 megawatts of wind power capacity for the national grid,
according to the Wall Street Journal.
GE will be responsible
for partially providing technology for the projects, considered part of its
efforts to push further into fast-growing markets. Construction is expected to
begin in 2018.
“Vietnam is going to be
a huge importer of energy as the economy grows. There is huge demand for power
and they can balance the equation with renewable energy,”
Mainstream Renewable CEO Andy Kinsella was quoted as saying.
Vietnam's fast-growing
economy is in need of more electricity.
Founded in 2008, the
Dublin-based Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd. is a major independent power
supplier to developing economies like South Africa and Chile.
This will be among the
largest clean energy power projects in Vietnam funded
by foreign investors.
Various media reports
suggest that investors in general are reluctant to develop wind power projects
because prices in Vietnam are not high enough to cover the investment.
In Vietnam, state-owned
Electricity of Vietnam, which controls the national grid, reportedly pays 7.8
cents or VND1,731 per kilowatt-hour for wind power, much lower than the rates in
China, Japan and the Philippines.
The Vietnamese
government has set a target of increasing its power output from about 200
billion kWh in 2015 up to over 330 billion kWh by 2020.
Last month, German firm
Terra Wood proposed a solar energy project worth
$400 million in the central province of Quang Ngai.
Two months ago,
Singapore's The Blue Circle was licensed to build a $60 million wind power
project in Ninh Thuan, also in the central region.
Source: Bao Vnexpress
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