VECEA: The race to build solar power plants shows that the soft mechanism of a private investor is always superior to an investor from the budget.

Before the whirlwind of investment and construction of solar power plants  in order to timely still enjoy the electricity selling price of 9.35 cents/kWh before June 30, 2019 (Decision date 11/2017/QD-TTg dated April 11th// 2017 on the incentive mechanism for the development of solar power projects in Vietnam has expired), many investors after obtaining the License worked day and night to put the plant into operation on schedule.

And with a solar panel factory in China supplying the whole world, installing and operating a solar power plant with a capacity of about 50 MW  is not a problem. But to get the ground for new construction is extremely difficult, in which, the soft mechanism of a private investor has promoted its superiority over investors from the budget.

Cam Lam district, Khanh Hoa province quickly becomes a target for solar power investors thanks to its high solar radiation source all year round.

Favored by nature with a high source of solar radiation all year round, Cam Lam district, Khanh Hoa province quickly becomes a target for solar power investors. After carefully surveying the soil properties here, Khanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee has agreed to license the construction of two solar power plants in two communes Cam An Nam and Cam An Bac as AMI Khanh Hoa Solar Power Plant (owner). investors are  AMI Khanh Hoa Energy Joint Stock Company) and  Central Electricity Solar Power Plant  (the investor is Central Power Corporation - EVNCPC, under the Vietnam Electricity Group - EVN).

If AMI Solar Power takes more than 1 year to complete the investment license and supplement the local solar power planning, then Central Power Solar Power is very convenient, because this is a project that the government Initially, EVN intends to pilot to determine the price.

But all difficulties lie in the stage of  clearance, where the soft mechanism comes into play, but state-owned enterprises cannot have such flexibility.

Mr. Hua Minh Duc - Director of AMI Khanh Hoa Solar Power Plant recalls a stressful time when building the plant.

Mr. Hua Minh Duc - Director of AMI Khanh Hoa Solar Power Plant recalled the stage of starting site clearance to build the Plant from January 2018 to September 2018. In October 2018, construction began, until March 2019 for line clearance. On May 25, 2019, the plant officially turned on power and connected to the system of Khanh Hoa Power Company.

It was a stressful time, Mr. Duc shared. The factory site clearance is quite convenient. Before we came, people invested 35 million VND/ha to plant sugarcane, only sold 25 million VND at harvest time, losing 10 million VND. The land here is not invested in farming anything but sugar cane.

Therefore, when there is a policy to give up land for the project, people are very excited. At first, each hectare of land was only a few hundred million, then gradually increased to billions of dong, deposited in the bank every month without doing anything, the profit was equal to the salary of the working worker, so they were very happy and agreed to sell. soil. The construction and leveling work is therefore also very convenient, and the equipment is installed on schedule.

The battery arrays are connected to combiner boxes to transfer power to the inverters

However, the clearance work for towing the new line is complicated. To pull the line from the plant's substation to the  Cam Ranh substation  to connect to the grid, the factory had to build 27 power poles. The amount of compensation for the people is not much, maybe only a few tens of millions, but the electricity pole is located in the middle of the people's fields, so it is very difficult to negotiate.

We had to use many ways to negotiate with the people. After settling the compensation of 27 power poles, they will pay compensation for crops in the electricity grid safety corridor according to regulations. The investor only compensates for crops on the safe corridor. However, later on that land they could not grow perennial crops, so it also caused frustration for the people.

Each shift has 1 shift leader, 1 assistant leader and 2 technicians, night shift only 2 people

In addition, the location of the  transmission substation has residential planning, roads and power lines go right above people's houses, they are afraid that the land cannot be sold, the land value will decrease, so when we construct it, they pull it out. each other to react, even livestream on social networks.

Therefore, on the one hand, we continue to negotiate with the people, on the one hand, during the two days of April 24-25 when pulling the line, we have to ask for the support of the local government to protect the construction.

Only when the power is successfully turned on and the plant operates smoothly, we can really breathe. Thanks to energizing on schedule, the factory still enjoys the price of Decision 11.

Substation located in the operating building

In 2019, Khanh Hoa especially has almost no rainy season as initially calculated (3 rainy months/year), so the power generation potential of AMI Khanh Hoa is very good.

AMI Khanh Hoa Solar Power Plant has a total of 146,780 panels, the panels are divided into several chains, 30 panels forming a battery array are connected to 219 combiner boxes, from which to 19 inverters of 22kV voltage after conversion. transferred to the transformer station located in the building. There are 2 transformers, total capacity of 50MVA, voltage level from 22kV to 110kV.

Power transmission line system is 5.5km long from the factory to Cam Ranh transformer station. Daily output is put on the net. During the day, the plant uses solar power, at night it uses electricity from the grid.

The solar panel system is cleaned regularly by the robot.

Not as fortunate as AMI Khanh Hoa, the Central Power Solar Power Plant only had time to power on 10MW for the price of 9.35 cents/kWh, not enough capacity as the original design was 50MW. The reason is also due to the lack of time to clear the ground.

At this time, the Factory has completed energizing 50MW, but 40MW later, there is no regulation on the price. This is a pilot project of EVN  to determine the price of solar power, but it missed the moment, due to the inability to be flexible in the process of negotiating to buy land from the people to clear the ground for factory construction. .

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Deputy Director of Board A of EVNCPC shared about the barriers that a state-owned enterprise encountered in the process of negotiating site clearance.

Swinging his arms around in a vast, picturesque solar power field, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Deputy Director of Board A of EVNCPC said that solar power has brought this land a new look. contribute to the province's budget revenue, increase the value of this arid arable land that does not bring economic benefits.

However, as a state-owned enterprise, we actually encountered many barriers to get to where we are today.

Mr. Thuy recalls, at the same time that two solar power projects in Cam Lam district were approved, they were state-owned enterprises, so the Central Power Solar Power Plant was allowed to buy land at the unit price issued by the province.

Since it's too low for reality, the Factory is not deployable. Each time I applied for an adjustment to the land purchase price, it took a few months for approval, then the actual land price was already very different. “Just like that, a few times of adjustment, we did not have the space to install the panels” – Mr. Thuy shared.

Pointing to the green grove carved into sparkling solar panels, Mr. Thuy said that the owner of this land demanded too high compensation for the land, even though the land was completely unprofitable. After many unsuccessful negotiations, the factory is considering a plan to ask Khanh Hoa province for support to change to another land.

The solar power field of Central Power is like a picture

Struggling to clear the ground, by the time Decision 11 expired, the plant only had time to power on 10MW. The remaining amount will not be completed until the end of December 2019, without a specific price set by the Government.

Currently, we very much hope that the Government  will soon have a decision on the solar power price so that businesses like us can rest assured to produce and orient their development in the future, Mr. Thuy said.

As of March 2020, a total of 4,500 MW of solar power has been installed, about 60% have been connected to the national electricity system, purchased at 9.35 cents/kWh.

Up to now, there is no further decision on the price of solar power.

In February 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade submitted to the Government to propose a mechanism to encourage the development of solar power projects under the fixed plan   (FIT price). Specifically, projects or parts of grid-connected solar power projects that have been granted an investment policy before November 23, 2019 and have a commercial operation date from July 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020 are applied. and enjoy preferential prices of 7.09 cents/kWh, for terrestrial solar power projects and 7.69 cents/kWh, for floating solar power projects. Rooftop solar power still keeps the price of 9.35 cents/kWh. This price does not include VAT.

Original link: http://vecea.vn/tin-tuc/t475/xay-dung-nha-may-dien-mat-troi--chuyen-bay-gio-moi-ke.html