On 22 September 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued Guidelines on Rooftop Solar Power Development under Official Letter No. 7088/BCT-DL. This document is a supplementation to Decision 13/2020/QD-TTg (“Decision 13”) on Incentives for solar energy development and Circular 18 on Solar energy project development and standard power purchase agreement (“Circular 18”).
Important Guidelines
- Definition of Rooftop Solar System (“RSS”): to be entitled to the FiT rate of 8,38UScent/kWh (excluding VAT) under Decision 13, a RSS must include 2 criteria:
(i) solar panels with maximum capacity of 1MW installed on the roof of a construction site with independent function, and
(ii) directly or indirectly connected to the electricity purchaser’s power grid with maximum capacity of 35kV.
In which, roof of a construction site is the roof of a house, or a house-like structure. Roofs of construction works need to be suitable to their functions and uses.
A house and house-like structure are classified in Annex 2 of Circular 03/2016/TT-BXD issued by the Ministry of Construction as follows:
|
House, house-like structure |
Classification criteria |
Construction Grade | ||||
| Special | I | II | III | IV | ||
| Height (meter)
|
>200 | > 75 to 200 | >28 to 75 | 6-28 | <6 | |
| Number of floors
|
> 50 | 20 to <50 | 8 to <20 | 2-7 | 1 | |
- If an investor acquires multiple adjacent rooftop solar power systems (on the same plot of land or roof of an industrial park) with a total capacity of more than 1MW (each system’s capacity is less than 1MW):
(i) Investor must sign separate power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) for each RSS and must not combine the PPAs of all systems into one contract;
(ii) Investor is exempted from obtaining electricity activity permits;
(iii) Investor must carry out the procedures for contract subjects transfer in order to inherit the rights and obligations related to the contracts signed by the previous investors.
- EVN can exercise its discretion in signing PPAs for RSS on the roof of office, operator, kitchen, motel, employee garage, factory, material warehouse, on site of solar power project sky, hydroelectric plants, thermal power plants if such projects satisfy the requirements set out in Decision 13 and Circular 18.
- Rooftop solar power system of agricultural and rural development projects (i.e. livestock, cultivation, forestry, salt-production, and fisheries): the owners of the projects are responsible for organizing production in accordance with the locality’s land use plans.
Farm constructions must have roofs. The farm’s roof must be suitable for the function and type of the farm. Investors are required to supplement the People’s Committee’s confirmation of the farm construction declaration in the grid connection agreement dossier.
At the moment, there aren’t any available RSS mechanisms applicable to aquaculture lagoons, farming and animal husbandry farms that use photovoltaic panels as roofs.
For more information on the above, please do not hesitate to contact the author Dr. Oliver Massmann under [email protected]. Dr. Oliver Massmann is the General Director of Duane Morris Vietnam LLC and the only foreign lawyer presenting in Vietnamese language to members of the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF VIETNAM.
