Renewable energy in Ninh Thuan

Buildout since 2018

Ninh Thuận's wind and solar industry grew after Vietnam introduced feed-in tariffs for solar and wind power, drawing large-scale investment to the province's dry, wind-exposed coastal plain^[2]. Solar capacity grew fastest in the years immediately after: by the first quarter of 2024, utility-scale solar in operation totalled 2,466.8 megawatts across 35 projects, with a further 286.4 megawatts of rooftop solar^[3][4]. A separate count for the end of 2024 gave a similar but not identical figure of 2,376 megawatts across 34 operating projects, consistent with the closure of Vietnam's solar feed-in tariff window in 2020 and 2021, after which few new utility-scale solar projects were approved^[2].

Wind power expanded on a similar timescale from a small number of named projects completed between 2019 and 2021. By the first quarter of 2024, 11 wind plants were in commercial operation with a combined capacity of 667.25 megawatts^[3][4]; a separate account for the end of 2024 gave 667 megawatts across the same 11 plants, alongside 17 wind projects with a combined approved capacity of 890.75 megawatts still awaiting full commissioning^[2]. Provincial hydropower, mostly small-scale and pre-dating the wind and solar buildout, stood at 329.5 megawatts across 11 plants in the first quarter of 2024, with a further 64 megawatts under construction^[3][4].

Named wind and solar farms

The largest combined wind and solar development is the Trung Nam Thuận Bắc complex, built by Trung Nam Group in the former communes of Bắc Phong and Lợi Hải, now part of Thuận Bắc commune^[7][8]. Its solar array totals 204 megawatts, generating about 450 million kilowatt hours a year, and its wind farm totals 151.95 megawatts across 45 turbines^[7]. The turbines were raised in three phases: 17 turbines of 39.95 megawatts completed in 2019 and 16 turbines of 64 megawatts completed in 2020, with the final 12 turbines of 48 megawatts commissioned on 16 April 2021, at which point the wind farm was reported as the largest in Vietnam^[10]. The wind phases together cost about 4,000 billion đồng, and the whole wind and solar complex was reported at about 5,000 billion đồng, with combined annual output of 950 million to 1 billion kilowatt hours^[7].

The largest single solar plant is the Trung Nam Thuận Nam plant, 450 megawatts, built at Phước Minh, now part of Thuận Nam commune, and inaugurated on 12 October 2020 together with Vietnam's first privately built 500 kilovolt transformer station and transmission line^[6]. A third large development, BIM Group's solar complex in the same commune, comprises three plants, BIM 1 at 30 megawatt-peak, BIM 2 at 250 megawatt-peak and BIM 3 at 50 megawatt-peak, for 330 megawatt-peak combined, at a reported cost of about 7,000 billion đồng; construction began in January 2018^[7].

Grid constraints and curtailment

The pace of connection outran the capacity of the local grid. Solar and wind capacity in Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận together had been planned to reach about 850 megawatts by 2020, but interconnection requests reached about 7,000 megawatts well before that date, and the Phan Rí to Ninh Phước line, rated at about 100 megawatts, ended up carrying about 400 megawatts of solar capacity from ten projects alone^[5]. Tuổi Trẻ prints that line's voltage as 100 kilovolt, which is not one of Vietnam's standard classes; the standard sub-transmission level is 110 kilovolt, and no other fetched source gives the figure^[5]. In June and July 2019 the National Load Dispatch Centre cut the output of affected plants by 38 to 65 percent to keep the grid within safe limits^[5].

The province's first large piece of relief came in October 2020, when Trung Nam Group and the provincial government inaugurated a 500 kilovolt and 220 kilovolt substation and transmission line running about 17 kilometres from Phước Minh to Vĩnh Tân, in Tuy Phong district of neighbouring Bình Thuận^[6]. Built alongside the 450 megawatt Trung Nam Thuận Nam solar plant at a combined cost of about 12,000 billion đồng, it was Vietnam's first 500 kilovolt transmission asset built by a private company, described in project reporting as intended to relieve grid capacity for the region^[6]. Grid limits persisted afterward: as late as October 2024 Ninh Thuận's provincial government was still asking central authorities to accelerate new 500 kilovolt and 220 kilovolt lines to clear capacity from newly built power projects^[3][4].

Plans to 2030

The provincial government's own published account, under the heading "National clean energy capital", set a 2030 target of about 26,500 megawatts of generating capacity from all sources combined, excluding nuclear power^[2]. Two pumped-storage hydropower projects were named for that horizon: 1,200 megawatts at Bác Ái, under construction with a target of 2030 to 2031, and 1,200 megawatts at Phước Hòa, targeted for 2030, together described as about 48 percent of Vietnam's pumped-storage potential^[2]. A third priority project, a liquefied natural gas plant at Cà Ná, was put at 1,500 megawatts in provincial planning reported in October 2024^[3][4], though a separate account describes an eventual Cà Ná liquefied natural gas complex of up to 6,000 megawatts; the two figures are not reconciled here^[2].

Vietnam's revised national Power Development Plan VIII, approved on 15 April 2025 under Decision 768/QĐ-TTg, set a nationwide 2030 target of 26,066 to 38,029 megawatts of onshore and near-shore wind and 46,459 to 73,416 megawatts of solar power, alongside 6,000 to 17,032 megawatts of offshore wind planned for operation between 2030 and 2035^[11]. No fetched source gave Ninh Thuận's own wind and solar capacity as an explicit share of that national total^[11].

Administration after 2025

Ninh Thuận province was dissolved and merged into Khánh Hòa province on 1 July 2025, under National Assembly Resolution 202/2025/QH15^[1]. The Trung Nam Thuận Bắc complex now sits in Thuận Bắc commune, an area of about 137.2 square kilometres formed from the former communes of Bắc Phong, Phước Kháng and Lợi Hải^[8]. The Trung Nam Thuận Nam plant and the BIM Group complex now sit in Thuận Nam commune, about 140.8 square kilometres, formed from the former communes of Phước Minh, Phước Nam and Phước Ninh^[9]; this new commune is smaller than, and should not be confused with, the former Thuận Nam district that the same 2025 reform abolished^[9].