‘Vietnamese people are interested in recovering capital when investing in solar power’

“The noticeable point of the solar power market in Vietnam is its extremely fast growth rate while the energy storage segment is also entering a boom period,” Mr. Hermit Zhang, Chairman of Uniview Zhejiang and Hopetrek Group, shared when present in Hanoi at the end of July.

Hopetrek is a global smart energy solution development brand, belonging to Uniview technology group (UNV), providing solar power solutions, energy storage systems (ESS), electric vehicle charging stations and smart home ecosystems. The company is present in many European countries such as England, Italy, Germany, Poland, before entering the Vietnamese market in July.

Compared to the major markets where Hopetrek is strongly developing, Europe and Australia, which prioritize system stability, the company’s research shows that the Vietnamese market is sensitive to economic efficiency. According to Mr. Zhang, Vietnamese consumers are having a clear shift in thinking. Instead of just asking “how much does the equipment cost”, they start to care more about whether the system will operate stably during the next 10 years or not.

Accordingly, long-term investment value (TCO) is the most important criterion when users calculate the total cost savings over 10 years of operation instead of just looking at the initial cost. “The competition in the future solar power market does not lie in who can sell a lot of equipment, but in which company offers the optimal long-term solution,” Mr. Zhang emphasized.

Also according to the head of Hopetrek, Vietnam possesses abundant solar resources, but high temperatures in summer often put excessive pressure on the power grid. The fact that some areas still have insufficient grid capacity or unstable voltage causes the need for many families to own an autonomous, stable and safe energy source.

The “self-production and self-consumption” model is growing strongly

Sharing the same opinion about the market potential, Mr. Pham Ngoc Tu, CEO of GPG Solar, commented that Vietnamese people’s habits are changing drastically from “selling electricity” to the grid to the “self-production” model. Previously, rooftop solar power installation was mainly for the purpose of selling excess electricity to the national grid, investment efficiency depended heavily on price subsidy policy (FIT). When policies change, the market returns to the core value of energy, which is to meet the family’s self-consumption needs, improve self-reliance and reduce electricity costs in the long run.

In addition, the strong “self-production” model also comes from the fact that equipment costs have decreased significantly compared to before, making investment more beneficial for users. “Not only does the South have high radiation with 4-5 hours of sunshine regularly throughout the year, now the North with 3-4 hours of sunshine has also reached a suitable stage for effective investment,” Mr. Tu said.

In the context of rising energy prices and local electricity shortages in the summer, GPG Solar representatives also said that equipping a storage system is no longer an additional option but can play an important role in ensuring energy security for households and small businesses.

The long-term effectiveness assessment is clear, but Mr. Mai Danh Hien, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Electricity Joint Stock General Finance Company (EVN Finance) admitted that initial investment costs are still a big barrier that makes many households hesitant. He assessed that the number of more than 100,000 households currently accessing solar power is still too small compared to the scale of nearly 100 million people in Vietnam.

According to him, distributed energy, especially rooftop solar power combined with storage from households, will help reduce pressure on the power grid during peak hours, optimizing energy efficiency. Therefore, EVN Finance will coordinate with solar power companies such as Hopetrek and specialized distribution systems such as GPG Solar to offer preferential loan packages and installment payment programs so that people can easily access initial investments of hundreds of millions of dong.

Solution for unstable power grid areas

According to Hopetrek representatives, some areas in Vietnam have problems such as voltage drops, fluctuations, inadequate grid capacity, frequent power outages or unstable voltage. This is why the new systems the company develops are optimized for weak grid environments. For example, when the power supply is abnormal, the system will immediately recognize and automatically switch the power supply. The company’s EPS switching speed is currently under 4 ms, higher than the industry standard of 10 ms, preventing sensitive devices from restarting during power outages.

In addition, to meet the hot and humid climate in Southeast Asia in general and in Vietnam in particular, the system needs higher requirements on design to withstand high humidity, high IP standards (IP65, IP66) as well as strict tests on temperature cycles, full-load operation at 45 degrees Celsius, humid thermal shock, salt frost and long-term aging. AI Safe Home solution will apply AI to continuously monitor temperature, current, capacity (SOC) and battery level (SOH) to predict abnormalities early.

According to Mr. Zhang, based on data about usage habits and the environment, AI in Hopetrek’s system can automatically decide when to charge/discharge the battery, giving priority to using solar power or EVN grid power. “In the future, when Vietnam’s electricity market applies a more complete time-based electricity price mechanism (TOU), AI will automatically take advantage of the difference in peak and off-peak prices to optimize charging and discharging strategies and save overall costs better,” he said.

Identifying single assembly solutions from three main components including inverter, battery management system (BMS) and energy management system (EMS) may have a cheaper initial cost, but Hopetrek representatives believe that companies with total solutions have many advantages such as quick installation, high system performance, stable operation, lower maintenance costs, warranty period of up to 10 years and continuously upgraded software. “These are important factors for users to achieve the most optimal TCO level,” he affirmed.