Feasibility study and development prospects of offshore wind power projects in Vietnam

Vietnam is a promising market for offshore wind power development because it has one of the largest wind power potentials in south-east Asia. However, some barriers such as high investment costs, complicated construction conditions and long construction time have influenced the development of offshore wind power projects; thus, there is currently only one operational offshore wind power project in Vietnam. In this paper, the economic, technical and environmental efficiency of an offshore wind power project with a capacity of 30 MW in the southern region of Vietnam is studied by using the Windpro program and the Retscreen software. The support policies of the government and obstacles in the investment process for offshore wind power projects are also analysed. The research results show that investment in the case study offshore wind power project in the southern region of Vietnam is economically feasible with the new feed-in tariff price with an internal rate of return of 18.6%, a net present value of $19 278 263, a benefit–cost number of 1.9 and a payback period of 8.3 years. However, the government needs to continue to improve support policies for offshore wind power in Vietnam, thus incentivising offshore wind farm projects that can develop more in future.