On August 13, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha chaired a meeting to review and give opinions on the draft decree on self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power.

Based on the comments, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has issued an incentive policy. Accordingly, organizations and individuals who install self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power without connecting to the national power system are given priority to develop unlimited capacity and are exempted from electricity operation licenses.

Simple procedures, guidance from subordinate agencies

The system installed with connection to the national grid is exempted from the electricity operation license. However, if the capacity is over 1MW, selling electricity to the grid, it is necessary to carry out the procedure to request an electricity operation license.

The procedures for development registration, investment implementation, construction and acceptance will also be shortened.

Households and houses only need to provide installation design drawings and copies of construction permits; factories, industrial parks and offices need to provide additional copies of investment policies, construction permits, fire prevention and fighting acceptance, and acceptance of existing works...

Provincial People's Committees issue simplified procedures in accordance with legal regulations. Along with that is a mechanism for decentralizing state management for guidance by lower-level agencies.

The spirit is that the certification must be as simple as possible, without creating new administrative procedures.

Regarding the plan to buy and sell surplus electricity to the national power system, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed a rate of 20% of actual installed capacity in the North and 10% in the remaining regions.

The price paid by Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) will be less than or equal to the average market electricity price in the previous year.

General Director of Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) Nguyen Anh Tuan said that the entire North currently has about 700MW of rooftop solar power, while the system capacity can receive about 7,000MW.

Mr. Do Van Nam, member of the board of members of the Northern Power Corporation, calculated that with the draft, people will save when using electricity during peak hours.

Selling excess electricity to the system at the above price, after about 5-6 years, households can recover their investment capital, while the current lifespan of a solar panel is about 12-15 years.

The rate of surplus electricity sold to the grid is 20%, opening the total source room.

Assessing that there is still a lot of room for rooftop solar power development in the North, there needs to be policies to encourage investment. Therefore, the Deputy Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade to review the conditions to serve as a basis for adjusting planning and plans, on the basis of opening "room" for rooftop solar power to self-produce and self-consumption, especially in the North (currently the regulation is 2,600 MW connected to the grid - PV).

At the same time, the research department agreed that the rate of selling surplus electricity from self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power to the national power system is 20% of the actual installed capacity.

The draft also stipulates the acceptance of remote metering and data collection systems, monitoring and control systems... with grid connection.

Specifically, installed capacity levels less than 100kWh will be connected to the power unit's system; capacity levels above 100kWh must be connected to the power distribution control level.

The Deputy Prime Minister noted that there must be technical management solutions to control the capacity of self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power sources to ensure system safety; especially power sources connected to the medium-voltage grid.

In addition, some opinions also discussed preferential policies when installing electricity storage systems, developing rooftop solar power in industrial parks and clusters to avoid overlapping with the direct electricity trading mechanism; considering the total capacity of developing self-produced and self-consumed rooftop solar power connected to the grid not to exceed the approved capacity in the planning.

Accordingly, the Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade, EVN, and relevant units to calculate load demand, ensure system safety, and transmission network when connecting to the grid to submit to the Prime Minister to adjust the national power development plan.