Solar in Vietnam

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STREETS ARE FLOODED IN HO CHI MINH CITY'S DISTRICT 2 AFTER A HEAVY RAIN ON MAY 7, 2019. PHOTO BY VNEXPRESS/HUU KHOA.

STREETS ARE FLOODED IN HO CHI MINH CITY'S DISTRICT 2 AFTER A HEAVY RAIN ON MAY 7, 2019. PHOTO BY VNEXPRESS/HUU KHOA.

Dear reader, I have to be frank. I just don’t have any good ideas today. So a few interesting stories that came over the transom.

  • A more walking friendly HCMC: Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Planning and Architecture are building more pedestrian streets. Some of these are around upcoming metro stations. This has been a trend all over. In New York, part of Times Square is pedestrian, and Vienna has a number of pedestrian and mixed-use streets (cars, bikes and pedestrians can all use the street). Same thing in DC. I support this wholeheartedly. I love pedestrians area. I think they help build a fun, walkable city that allows a better sense of community. But that’s me.

  • Flooding will persist. District 2 flooding will likely re-occur until the city acquires land for projects that should help alleviate it in the future. This is becoming a real problem and it will only get worse with climate change.

  • Japan is outsourcing customer service jobs to Vietnam, and it is growing. This one company, transcosmos inc., has 5 centers with 1,750 workstations. I am totally surprised. I didn’t realize Vietnam had the Japanese language talent (although some of this work may not need Japanese language). But good for Vietnam. These can be mind-numbing jobs, but at least they aren’t back-breaking.

  • Watch your bags on planes! Not sure how big a deal this is, but thought it was interesting: Chinese men are stealing passengers’ valuables on the plane. It seems like it would be much better to do it on the other side, with checked baggage, but probably not as much money. I was surprised that this happens (although I shouldn’t - it happens on every other form of transportation), and also that people carry so much cash around. eCommerce and credit cards would do a lot to stop this sort of thing, although I guess computers and phones are still valuable. Even those, though, are less valuable because they can be “bricked” from afar. One other thing: not sure how I feel about them highlighting that it was Chinese nationals. Maybe only Chinese nationals do this, but maybe not.

  • Businesses are renting their roofs for solar power. This is very exciting. The government continues to promise to buy electricity from solar for 9.25 cents per kWh, which is quite good. And these companies aren’t doing anything with their roofs now. Plus there are a lot of loans for this. It sounds like there is a real business opportunity here. Saigon Co.op is one of the companies considering it. And a few factories.

  • Households too: And it’s not just businesses. 1,600 households and enterprises have already installed solar panels.

  • And companies! Plus a number of companies are building large solar farms, which will be necessary to really move to renewables in a major way. A Norweigan company is building multiple solar projects that should add up to 485 MW.

  • Now for some bad news: yachts. Rich people are buying superyachts. Ugh. I guess rich people are gonna rich. And there are an increasing number of rich people in Vietnam: “Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, defined as those with investable assets of US$30 million or more, were minted faster here in percentage terms than anywhere else in the world between 2013 and 2018.” The marina projects are probably just real estate. Developers want to differentiate their high-end offerings, so they build a marina. Not cheap, but worth it if it raises the prices of homes. But still, I am not excited about Vietnam becoming a play thing for the rich.