Argentina's IMPSA Set to Develop Wind Turbine Plant and Windfarm in Vietnam with PetroVietnam Power

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Argentine multinational company Pescarmona Metallurgical Industries (IMPSA) (Mendoza, Argentina) has confirmed a $3 billion deal to develop a wind turbine plant in Vietnam to supply turbines for a windfarm, which will be built and operated in conjunction with PetroVietnam Power (PVP) (Hanoi, Vietnam).

As long ago as August 2008, the two companies signed an agreement to build the windfarm, which will have a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW), over a five-year period. The proposed windfarm will be built in the Bac Binh district of the central province of Binh Thuan and will cover a land area of 10,000 acres.

In September the same year, IMPSA and PVP--a member of the state-owned Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam)--signed an agreement in Hanoi to set up a joint venture to produce both wind and hydropower equipment, and provide maintenance and repair services for projects involving both types of generating equipment.

Earlier this month, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited the IPMSA wind turbine plants in the department of Godoy Cruz, Mendoza, where wind turbines are manufactured. IMPSA has two wind turbine plants in Mendoza; one plant is used for research and development, design of wind turbines, and the manufacture of the structural components for the wind turbine towers, while the other manufactures up to 75 wind turbines each year.

IMPSA sees the investment in wind and hydropower in Vietnam as a significant step for the development of renewable energy in Vietnam. According to some experts the coastal areas of Vietnam, stretching some 3,000 kilometers and covering about 8.6% of the country, offer the possibility of generating up to 513,000 MW of electricity from wind power.

Considering that the country's largest hydropower plant at Son La produces about 2,400 MW of electricity, the potential from wind power in the country is immense, at more than 200 times that produced from Son La, and up to 10 times the total demand expected to be reached by 2020.

Vietnam is acutely aware of the problems likely to arise as a result of global warming, with much of the countryside around the Mekong and Red River deltas being reduced to swamps if pessimistic forecasts of rising sea levels prove accurate.

Despite this, the forecast for the next five years in Vietnam points to a rise in coal-fired power production. According to analysts, the government does not have sufficient resources to subsidize renewable energy sources, so it is turning to coal to meet the rising energy demands. Although much of the electricity produced in Vietnam comes from hydropower, coal is likely to provide 19% of the country's energy in 2011 and 34% by 2015.

Even if new coal-fired plants use the latest technologies to keep emissions to a minimum, they still will produce a certain level of carbon emissions, which will not help the pollution levels in some of Vietnam's major cities, where pollution levels can sometimes exceed the levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Geneva, Switzerland) by a factor of three.

Overall, the Vietnamese government has set a target of 5% of all energy produced in the country to come from renewable sources by 2020. The IMPSA-PVP deal can only be a step in the right direction.

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