Figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency show that Vietnam’s cumulative solar capacity reached 19,252 MW at the end of last year, pointing to an increase of 586 MW by 2025.
VietnamCumulative solar capacity stood at 19,252 MW at the end of 2025, according to figures published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), compared to 18,666 MW at the end of 2024.
The increase of 586 MW included in IRENA’s 2026 Renewable Capacity Statistics is higher than the 79 MW added in 2024, but lower than the almost 1.6 GW added in 2023, as shown in additional figures from the IRENA database.
Lam Pham and Alnie Demoral, energy analysts at Ember, specialized in Asian markets, said this pv magazine Rooftop solar is performing best in Vietnam, with interest growing particularly among commercial and industrial stakeholders.
“Utility solar faces several scale challenges in Vietnam, currently including entrenched fossil fuel generation, inadequate grid infrastructure, resistance from utilities wary of managing intermittent renewables, and high upfront investment costs,” Pham and Demoral said. “These have emerged since the solar boom caused by feed-in tariffs in 2017.”
Last year, Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade saw an update feed-in tariffs for solar and wind energy projects, with separate tariffs being introduced for solar energy projects that integrate battery energy storage. Pham and Demoral said rates have been on a downward trend since 2017 and are “relatively low at this time, except for systems with battery storage.”
Pham and Demoral cited other market factors such as geopolitical tensions and shifts in the supply chain that are bringing manufacturing investments and purchase orders to Vietnam. “Many of them, as multinational consumer brands with Scope 2 emissions obligations, have expanded their manufacturing footprint,” they explained. “And of course the low price of solar panels due to Chinese production of solar energy in Vietnam.”
In January, a draft decree from the Ministry of Industry and Trade suggested that owners of rooftop solar panels could sell up to 50% of energy returned to the grid, an increase from the current limit of 20%, in an effort to increase future absorption. Pham and Demoral said this change could see demand grow substantially by 2026.
Vietnam introduced a direct power purchase mechanism (DPPA) in early 2025, allowing renewable energy producers to sell electricity directly to large private consumers, breaking the monopoly of the country’s only public power company, Vietnam Electricity.
Pham and Demoral said Vietnam’s solar market would benefit from the continued privatization of the country’s electricity market to attract private investors. They added that grid integration and curtailment risks need to be addressed, as well as greater investments in the grid, batteries and system flexibility.
According to Vietnam’s revised National Energy Development Plan, which was approved last year, the country aims to reach 73 GW of installed solar power and 38 GW of onshore wind power by 2030.
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