Reconciling Net-Zero Emissions and Growing Electricity Demand

This chapter presents an analysis of changes in the elements of the electricity system in Vietnam, elucidating the direction and speed of electricity system transitions under conditions of vertical bundling and underdeveloped markets. The study employs an analytical framework based on the grid paradigm presented in Chapter 3. The results showed that disorderly and abrupt electricity sector reform and underdeveloped infrastructure have impeded transitions towards renewable-energy-sourced electricity (RES-E) systems; however, the study suggests that natural gas can bridge the change in generation between coal and RES-E. Despite feed-in tariffs for RES-E and internal and external landscape changes, such as negative implications of coal power plants, the pledge to Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement and net-zero emissions, international credit restrictions, and high-voltage backbone transmission grids, RES-E projects are deemed less bankable owing to uncertain, abrupt, and disorderly policy intervention. Coal and gas inertia are reinforced and a fuel shift to gas will be accelerated despite national security concerns over increasing dependency on imported natural gas. Past commissions to coal and gas power will direct the electricity system towards ammonia-biomass co-firing and hydrogen power to mitigate asset stranding once these technologies become commercially available on a large scale.