VN among top three nations leading renewable energy shift in Asia Pacific

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Accordingly, Australia leads the index with 89% of capacity under construction being either wind, solar or biomass power. Japan and South Korea are ranked 2nd and 4th, respectively, due to a large pipeline of offshore wind projects in both countries.

The third place in the region is taken by Viet Nam which leads emerging markets, as the country promoted feed-in tariffs to attract investment in solar and wind power.

Fossil fuel generation projects are still being built in Asia Pacific, with 192 GW of coal plants and 65 GW of gas-fired power plants currently under construction.

While clean energy is growing rapidly in Asia, many emerging market economies continue to build fossil fuel plants to meet fast-growing base load demand with 24/7 reliability, said Xizhou Zhou, vice president global power and renewables at IHS Markit

Developed countries tend to face less pressure as their power demand growth is much slower or has already peaked, but even nations like Japan and the Republic of Korea are still building some coal plants, Zhou added.

Viet Nam rose five places to 34th out of 40 economies in global ranking of attractiveness in terms of renewable energy investment, according to the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index released in November 2020 by British multinational professional services company Ernst & Young.

Viet Nam aims for 10.7% of its total electricity output by 2030 being generated from renewables, mainly solar and wind energy, up from 6% previously planned.

By Thuy Dung