Over recent years, Da Nang has seen an increasing number of home and business owners to use solar power with the installation of solar thermal panels on their property’s roof in order to generate their own electricity and sell any excess electricity to the national grid for economic benefits.

Workers from the city-based HI-RUBIC JSC installing rooftop solar panels in Ngu Hanh Son District

For the time being, the installation of solar panels on the rooftops keeps up with the global trend and helps to promote the development of the renewable energy in Da Nang, and the central region and highlands as a whole, specially amid the national government finding ways to reduce reliance on coal-fired power plants and boost renewables for carbon footprints reduction.

Located in the middle of sunny and windy Central Viet Nam with average sunshine hours per year up to 2,100 hours, and an average radiation intensity of 4.89kWh /m2 /day, Da Nang boasts a great potential for solar energy generation, especially rooftop solar panel installation.

Noticeably, Vietnamese government has officially decided to approve a new feed-in-tariff mechanism to encourage solar power development in the country.

Under the new scheme, solar projects approved before 23 November 23, 2019 and starting commercial operations between 1 July, 2019 and 31 December, 2020 enjoy the new tariffs. In detail, the tariffs for rooftop solar are fixed at 1,943 VND (8.38 US cents), floating solar at 1,783 VND (7.69 US cents) and ground-mounted solar power projects at 1,644 VND (around US 7.09 cents) for each kWh.

As of July, Cam Le District has had a total of 400 rooftop solar power systems installed with a combined total capacity of about 9,120 MW.

Located in Khue Trung Ward, Cam Le District), viewed from a distance, Mr Pham Duc Tien’s house looks somewhat different from surrounding others as its roof is totally covered with eye-catching blue solar panels. 

Tien said, the biggest advantage of installing rooftop solar panels is that they offer cost savings. In the past, his family had to pay a large amount for high power consumption by such many electrical devices.

Fully aware of the great economic benefits of the solar power, his family decided to pour nearly 100 million VND  into the installation of solar panels on his house’ rooftops with a monthly capacity of 700 kWh.

According to his calculations, the family saves nearly 2 million VND each month by using solar power, and after the subsequent 5 - 7 years, he will be able to reimburse the initial investment cost.

With regard to another advantage, as a general solar industry rule of thumb, solar panels last about 25-30 years.

Besides, these solar panels also help to considerably cool the rooftop, especially in the scorching days, without the use of any heat-resistant materials.

Solar power panels under installation on a rooftop of a house located on Thang Long Street, Cam Le District.

Apart from local families, such large businesses across the city as the Gemstone Forest Solar Limited Liability Company, the Hoa Tho Textiles and Garments Corporation, and the Senko Plastic JSC have developed their own rooftops solar power system with capacities of 80kWp, 189kWp and 118.8kWp, respectively.

In reality, electricity prices usually keep on fluctuating from time to time. So, it is difficult to calculate the expenditure on electricity for a certain period of time. However, when it comes to electricity generated by solar rooftops, the price of power generated can be calculated easily. In fact, one can even calculate the cost of electricity generation for another 10 years. In this way, it is a secure investment.

According to the Da Nang Power One-member Limited Company (Da Nang PC), by 2025, the city’s total rooftop solar power capacity will have reached 100.69 MW, about 4% of the total local electricity demand.

To realise this target, even more incentive mechanisms will created to encourage more home and business owners to make a highly recommended shift to the eco-friendly, cost-saving source of power with low maintenance cost.

By TIEU YEN – Translated by A.T