Press Release
Solarbk took part in bridging the infrastructure gap and powering connectivity in Asia event
On October 11th, 2018, Bach Khoa Solar Energy Corporation (SolarBK) participated in a round-table conference about Bridging The Infrastructure Gap And Powering Connectivity In Asia Event, organized by International Finance Corporation (IFC), discussing the context of solar power in Vietnam recently. This is a part of an annual conference of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) in Bali, Indonesia.
The annual conference gathered 12.000 to 15.000 attendees, including 3.500 delegators from 189 nations, approximately 1000 media agents and more than 5000 delegators represent a banking community, academic institutions, civil society organizations, observers and parliamentarians. During the conference, there are 105 events of WBG (World Bank Group) taking place continuously in 7 days, revolving around the issue of Asia microeconomic. The Bridging The Infrastructure Gap And Powering Connectivity In Asia discussion took place at 10 AM, on October 11th, 2018, had many agents of organizations, companies from nations in Asia region that work in different fields, such as transport, energy, financial institution, developing partners and senior management of IFC and WBG. The goal of this dialogue was to find ways to boost investment in infrastructure, as well as highlight and replicate the creative concepts from the region, especially the smart solutions for the climate and environment.
According to IFC’s official report, there are more than 400 million people still live with electricity shortage and more than 55% of them do not have access to the internet. In addition, as expected, Asian population will be doubled in 2030 which will potentially cause the serious infrastructure shortage. Asia needs to invest about 26 billion USD in infrastructure in the next 12 years. With the financial restrictions of many Asian Governments, personal investment will be the key to provide high quality and more sustainable services.
Building infrastructure problem in Vietnam
At the World Economic Forum, the global competitiveness report 2008-2009 shows that in all the different infrastructure industries, Vietnam stayed at the lowest rank in port quality, road, and electricity. In the framework of this roundtable, SolarBK agent shared about the current reality of developing renewable energy industry in Vietnam, it is replacing some source of energy like thermal power, hydropower which has many environmental inadequacies and resource impact.
Before the encouraging policy of using solar power was established in 2017, SolarBK said this source of power was widely developed in Vietnam island region, where people can not directly connect to the national power grid. Typically, the clean energy project made by this unit in 2008, which supplied electricity to the entire 50 island points on Truong Sa island. In fact, lack of power rates in Asia usually seriously occurs on islands. Initiating electricity in this area is the first step to completely build the infrastructure for other units such as the telecommunications networks, the internet, which helps to improve the economy in the area.
Additionally, SolarBK is also strongly implementing in the rooftop solar power market, especially in the segment for households to quickly help people getting closer to solar power and get the benefits before the expires on May 06, 2019. SolarBK has collapsed with BIDV bank and BIC insurance company to provide the solar output insurance and financial services for customer when installing solar energy. This is considered as a third-party effort to help people having more confidence when approaching solar power, which is a quite new energy source.
Private stats in Ho Chi Minh City shows that nearly 277.000 roofs that qualify for solar power installation. Overall, the current market potential is up to 6.000 MWp. If we can maximize the rooftop solar electricity market, Vietnam will have a huge power supply and initiate power source, which is considered the foundation for the nation’s economic development.
Financial solution advances facility development in Vietnam
According to ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) report, in 2017, developing banks estimated Vietnam requested 16.7 billion USD to 25 billion USD to satisfy infrastructure demand in the period 2016-2020. Based on the evaluation of industry research, it is believed that Vietnam will need about 20,2 billion USD per year. However, the current expense is only half of this amount and the financial gap can be estimated at 12 billion dollars per year.
To solve this problem, IFC has provided the green bond solution, a type of fixed-income stock that attracts capital for projects which have environmental benefits. IFC is one of the most renowned financial institutions for renewable energy in developing countries and a major part for green bond development. During the last ten years, IFC has invested more than 30 billion USD and raised 27 billion USD for projects in energy, traffic, environment, infrastructure for the developing countries. So far, IFC has released more than 8.2 billion green bonds. Proceeds from the bond issues will be committed to investing in programs of strengthening the adaptation and reducing the climate change impact, including clean energy projects, efficient energy use, public traffic, and clean water. The connection with SolarBK in this dialogue shows that IFC is interested in investing in Vietnam solar market, especially the rooftop solar power. They collapsed with Armstrong Investment Fund (Singapore) to respectively contribute 16% and 20% to Gia Lai Electricity Corporation (GEC) – a power subsidiary of TTC, developing solar power factory. In addition, the roundtable also points out problems in each country that affect the general growth of public infrastructure investment and network link. Based on the conference’s morale, SolarBK shares experience in designing and developing large-scale renewable energy system on islands (integrated wind power, solar power, and seawater filter technology), proposes new direction, which helps countries with similar geography to be proactive in improving their power sources and reducing energy shortage in the whole Asia.
Finally, the delegators agree that developing and completing infrastructure is the basic step to strengthen the Asia network link, then promote the economic development in the region. In particular, the role of the investment funds, the financial institutions is extremely important to combine with enterprises in the infrastructure field such as transportation, electricity, water and strongly promote development in the near future.
COMPANY INFORMATION
About SolarBK Holdings
Founded in 2006, based on 40 years of scientific research from Bach Khoa University professors and scientists, SolarBK Holdings becomes the leading company in researching, developing and supplying renewable energy products and plans in Vietnam (solar energy and wind energy). Products of SolarBK all achieve international certifications to satisfy domestic demand and are exported to America, Tunisia, Turkey and other countries in Europe.
With perpetual effort and development, SolarBK has generated many subsidiaries in charge of each specific field of clean energy study. Meanwhile, IREX joint stock company is a clean energy manufacturer. Solar ESCO joint stock company offers business complete clean energy solution. SolarGATES company distributes clean energy equipment, apps, full solutions to household consumers.
SolarBK Holdings has demonstrated its potential through many national projects such as lighting system on Trường Sa islands ( won Global Energy 2012), seawater filter run by clean energy on Song Tử Tây island ( won Global Energy 2016), etc.
In 2017, SolarBK provided domestic market solar energy solutions up to 3 MWp, held 30% domestic market share. In October 2017, Đà Nẵng Residents’ Committee officially approved SolarBK to build Solar Energy Farm (Solar Farm) with a capacity of 4.4 MWp in Đà Nẵng.
