More and more households and commercial establishments in the southern province of Dong Nai are installing rooftop solar panels to generate electricity for their own use and to sell the surplus to the local utility.

Installing a rooftop solar power system in Dong Nai province’s Bien Hoa city.
– Photo baochinhphu.vn)

Pham Quoc Tuan in Bien Hoa city’s Tan Tien ward installed a 50KWp solar power system in his house in May and no longer needs to buy electricity from the Dong Nai Power Company (DNPC).

In fact, he has a surplus he sells to the DNCP.

He was paying 20 million VND (860 USD) a month for power since he also has a coffee shop in his house.

His rooftop solar power system produces about 6,000kWh of electricity a month whereas he uses 4,000-5,000kWh, he said.

He sells the surplus at a price of 2,100 VND per kilowatt-hour, he added.

The Thanh Duc Livestock and Production Services Commercial Company Limited in Xuan Loc district invested 600 million VND (25,900 USD) in a rooftop panel a year ago.

The system operates efficiently and meets around 40 percent of the company’s requirement.

Truong Dinh Quoc, deputy director of the DNPC, said the number of consumers installing a rooftop system and signing a contract to sell surplus electricity to the company has increased from 26 in the middle of last year to 770 now.

Most of them are households, he said.

At the current rate the number is expected to increase rapidly, easing the power shortage, he said.

Solar power is friendly to the environment while the cost of operating and maintaining the system is low, according to the DNCP.

To promote solar, the DNCP has taken several measures such as propagating its benefits to the public.

Dong Nai has favourable conditions for producing solar power like an average of 2,445 hours of sunshine a year and a high radiation rate of 1,849kWh per square metre a year, according to its Department of Industry and Trade.

The province has many factories and companies that have the infrastructure and roofs suitable for installing solar panels, it added.

Solar power systems could be used for 20-30 years and recover their cost within four to five years, according to suppliers.