US PV incentives should be entirely focused on solar cell manufacturing in the short term, with maximum incentive rates given to domestic solar cell production that ultimately has a risk-free supply chain of materials and equipment, writes Finlay Colville, head of research at PV Tech.
Trina Solar US has announced that its 6.5GW PV wafer manufacturing facility in Vietnam specifically designated to supply the US market will be online in mid-2023.
The G7 initiative JETP has agreed to support Vietnam’s green energy transition and mobilise an initial US$15.5 billion of public and private finance over the next three to five years.
Curtailment remains the most talked-about subject in Vietnamese solar, but potential solutions such as foreign investment in transmission and grid-based energy storage are being held back.
Two of the world’s major coal-based economies were expected to receive billions of dollars of funding at COP27 from a G7 initiative to wean them off coal and deliver clean energy transitions, but while Indonesia has walked away with a US$20 billion deal, talks have stalled on the US$5 billion set aside for its Southeast Asian neighbour Vietnam, leaving the G7 nations that deliver the funding scratching their heads.
Solar accounted for half of all global power generating capacity added last year, with 182GW deployed, a 25% increase on 2020, according to a report from BloombergNEF (BNEF).
