This equates to a capacity of 15-20 gigawatts, up from the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s current proposal of 2-3 GW.

VEA chairman Tran Viet Ngai said offshore wind power plants have advantages such as high wind speeds of more than 10 meters per second and more than 5,000 hours of wind a year.

Offshore farms can also install large turbines of more than 10 megawatts which generate billions of kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, he said.

Their feed-in tariffs are expected to fall from 7.69 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour to 6.94 U.S. cents by 2030 and 5.82 U.S. cents by 2050, he said, adding that offshore farms are the global trend.

Some foreign organizations have also voiced support for an increase in Vietnam’s planned offshore wind power capacity.

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) has proposed 10 GW by 2030, saying only large projects are attractive enough for foreign investors.

Liming Qiao, head of GWEC Asia, said at an online meeting last week that the efficiency of offshore wind projects is double that of solar power farms and higher than onshore projects and matches gas-fired projects.

"Vietnam should take its opportunity to develop offshore wind power projects as fast as it can to achieve its goal of reducing energy production costs."

By the end of April, Vietnam had 612 MW of wind power capacity, and the figure is set to surge to 4.5-5.4 GW by the end of this year.