Despite being a leader in solar and wind generation in Southeast Asia, Vietnam has seen its coal use and coal plant-related emissions hit all-time highs this year, as authorities promise multinational companies reshoring away from China into Vietnam that there wouldn’t be massive blackouts anymore. Coal-fired power reached a record-high 64.6% share of Vietnam’s electricity generation in April this year, according to data from energy think tank Ember cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.
Vietnam drove up wind power growth in ASEAN in 2022, while solar’s progress slowed after Vietnam phased out the feed-in-tariff FiT scheme for solar power in 2022. Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in share of low-carbon generation, at 42%, primarily from hydropower, which had a 29% share in 2023, per Ember’s data. “However, as electricity demand more than doubled over the past decade, Viet Nam met this with a doubling of coal generation, which led to a tripling of emissions.