Business Consulting in Vietnam
We work with renewable-energy businesses operating in Vietnam to sharpen commercial strategy, win revenue and enter or expand into new segments. Vietnam has already run the fastest renewable build in Southeast Asia, and is now rewriting the commercial rules underneath it — how you qualify, how you connect and how you get paid have all changed inside two years. The demand argument here does not need to be made. The contract and the rulebook are where the money is won and lost.
Solar installersC&I solarBattery & energy storageEnergy retailersRenewable-energy technologyEnergy software & SaaSEV & chargingEquipment suppliersEnergy services
Vietnamese Market at a Glance
Four figures we track for the Vietnamese market. Each names its source and reporting period.
Ember · April 2026 · clean sources 45% in total
Revised PDP8 · April 2025 · from about 87.6 GW at end-2025
Revised PDP8 · USD · generation and transmission
EVN · Decision 599/QD-EVN · from 10 May 2025
What the Numbers Mean for Business
Vietnam already built the boom. The risk here is the contract, not the demand.
Solar and wind supplied about 12% of Vietnamese electricity in April 2026, with clean sources at 45% in total — far ahead of its neighbours. But the feed-in tariff that produced that build ended in dispute: a 2023 inspection found widespread licensing and certification failures, Resolution 233/NQ-CP set the terms for resolving them in December 2024, and from January 2025 EVN began paying some operating projects below their contracted rate. In most markets the commercial question is whether demand will arrive. Here it is whether a signed offtake contract will be honoured in full.
The plan asks for roughly a doubling of the system in five years
Installed capacity reached about 87.6 GW at the end of 2025. The revised Power Development Plan 8 targets 183 to 236 GW by 2030, requiring a further 93 to 146 GW and about USD 136.3 billion of investment across 2026 to 2030. Meanwhile solar ran at roughly a 15% capacity factor over ten months of 2025 and curtailment is uncompensated. The pipeline is enormous, the grid is the constraint, and the businesses that make money in the next five years will be the ones that can tell the difference between a project on the plan and a project that will actually be built and dispatched.
The route to a customer changed twice in sixteen months, and again in June 2026
Decree 57/2025 replaced the original direct purchase framework in March 2025; Decree 243/2026 amended it on 26 June 2026, cutting the physical DPPA threshold from 200,000 kWh a month to 20,000, raising the rooftop export cap from 20% to 50%, and admitting data centres, EV charging operators and industrial-park retailers. Two-component billing began for the largest users in July 2026 and a competitive retail market is targeted for 1 January 2027. Every one of those moves a number inside a customer proposal — and most proposals in this market still quote the superseded ones.
Understanding the Vietnamese Market
What is happening in the Vietnamese market, and why it matters commercially.
The build already happened once. The next one is four times larger.
Vietnam is not an emerging renewable market. It already ran the fastest solar build in Southeast Asia and closed November 2025 with 17,049 MW of solar and 7,102 MW of onshore and nearshore wind, about 27% of installed capacity. The revised Power Development Plan 8 then asked for 183,291 to 236,363 MW of total capacity by 2030, against roughly 87,600 MW at the end of 2025. That is not an extension of the last build. It is a different order of magnitude.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | Total installed capacity reached about 87,600 MW at the end of 2025, up 6% on the year. The 2030 target of 183,291 to 236,363 MW requires a further 93 to 146 GW inside five years, with solar at 46,459 to 73,416 MW and onshore and nearshore wind at 26,066 to 38,029 MW. |
| Where it is concentrated | Existing solar and wind sit in the South Central coast and Central Highlands. The load sits around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. That mismatch is the reason the grid, not the resource, decides what gets built next. |
| Who captures the value | Businesses that can deliver at programme scale and prove it — EPC, balance of plant, high-voltage electrical, commissioning, and the long service tail behind all of it. |
| Timing | Now, and compressed. Total investment of about USD 136.3 billion is projected across 2026 to 2030, USD 118.2 billion of it in generation. |
| What to watch | Actual commissioned capacity against the plan each year. Vietnam publishes ambitious targets and then revises them; the annual delivery number is the honest measure of the market you are selling into. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
A pipeline that looks limitless and a delivery window that is not. Businesses size themselves against the plan and get paid against what actually reaches financial close.
What to change now
Build the forecast from projects with an approved offtake route, not from the national target. The gap between the two is where the last cycle destroyed capital.
How to know it is working
The proportion of your pipeline that has a signed offtake or a confirmed connection. If that number is small, you have a list rather than a pipeline.
The subsidy era ended in a payment dispute
A Government Inspectorate review in April 2023 found licensing and certification failures across a large number of renewable projects. Resolution 233/NQ-CP of 10 December 2024 set the framework for resolving them, and from January 2025 EVN began withholding part of payments and applying temporary tariffs below the contracted feed-in rate where eligibility was in question. Hundreds of investors have petitioned against it. Whatever the merits, the commercial fact is that a signed Vietnamese power purchase agreement is not, on its own, a settled revenue stream.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | The dispute reaches back across the 2019 to 2021 solar boom and the 2021 wind rush, and touches projects that are operating and generating today. Resolution 233 works from the principle that violations attributable to the developer disqualify a project from the preferential rate. |
| Where it is concentrated | Ground-mounted solar and wind commissioned against the feed-in deadlines, and a large volume of rooftop capacity registered in the same window. |
| Who captures the value | Advisers, technical due diligence providers and restructuring specialists in the short term. In the longer term, buyers of distressed assets who can price the legal position correctly. |
| Timing | Live now and unresolved. Investors have cited the non-retroactivity principle in Resolution 68-NQ/TW; the government has not withdrawn Resolution 233. |
| What to watch | Whether a durable settlement mechanism emerges, and whether it is applied consistently. That single question sets the risk premium on every Vietnamese offtake contract. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
Counterparty risk in places most models do not carry it. An operating asset with a contract can still have its revenue reduced administratively.
What to change now
Diligence the compliance history of any project you supply, service, buy or lend against — construction permits, land conversion, acceptance certification and commercial operation date evidence.
How to know it is working
Whether your contracts price a payment-reduction scenario at all. If the answer is no, you are carrying a risk you have not been paid for.
How you get paid changed again on 26 June 2026
Decree 243/2026/ND-CP, issued on 26 June 2026 with immediate effect, amended the direct power purchase framework a second time in sixteen months. The consumption threshold for a physical DPPA over a private line fell from 200,000 kWh a month to 20,000. The rooftop self-consumption export cap doubled from 20% to 50% of output. Data centre operators, EV charging operators at 22 kV and above, and licensed retailers inside industrial parks and clusters all became eligible participants.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | The threshold cut alone moves the addressable buyer set from very large industrial sites to a large part of the mid-market. The virtual DPPA threshold over the national grid remains at 200,000 kWh a month. |
| Where it is concentrated | Industrial parks, economic zones and manufacturing clusters, where a licensed zone retailer can now aggregate demand for the first time, and in the data centre and charging segments that were previously outside the mechanism. |
| Who captures the value | Developers with connectable capacity, zone operators and retailers, and the advisers who can structure and register an arrangement with the national system operator. |
| Timing | Now. Decree 243 took effect on issue, and existing transitional arrangements may run to 31 December 2030. |
| What to watch | How consistently participation is registered and announced by NSMO, and how the cost of grid backup is allocated. EVN has already warned that extending access without cost-allocation rules pushes system cost onto other users. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
A far larger set of qualifying customers, reached through a route your sales process probably does not yet know how to structure or register.
What to change now
Re-run your customer list against the 20,000 kWh threshold before you do anything else. Most businesses here are still qualifying against the old number and calling the segment small.
How to know it is working
The number of live conversations with buyers who were ineligible in May 2026. If it is zero, the change has not reached your pipeline.
The bill is being rebuilt into capacity plus energy
Article 50 of the Electricity Law 2024 and Decree 146/2025/ND-CP require a two-component tariff, splitting the bill into a capacity charge for maximum demand and an energy charge for consumption. Parallel invoicing ran through the end of 2025, a notional pilot through the first half of 2026, and formal application began in July 2026 for consumers averaging at least 200,000 kWh a month. The average retail price itself is 2,204.0655 VND per kWh excluding VAT, set under EVN Decision 599/QD-EVN from 10 May 2025.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | The pilot applies to large consumers supplied directly by EVN distribution units and averaging 200,000 kWh a month or more over the preceding twelve months, with wider application expected from August 2027. |
| Where it is concentrated | Manufacturing, cold chain, data centres and any load with a peaky demand profile. A customer with poor load factor is affected far more than one with steady draw. |
| Who captures the value | Anyone selling load shifting, demand management, storage, efficiency or on-site generation. A capacity charge makes peak reduction a directly billable saving for the first time. |
| Timing | Now for the largest users, and inside the planning horizon for everyone else. |
| What to watch | The capacity charge rate as it is actually set, and how it interacts with a DPPA. Under a two-component bill a customer still pays the grid for backup capacity, which narrows the headline saving from direct supply. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
Savings models built on a single blended rate overstate the benefit of any solution that reduces energy but not peak demand.
What to change now
Rebuild quoting around measured maximum demand as well as consumption. A proposal that cannot separate the two cannot be reconciled to the customer’s new bill.
How to know it is working
Whether your proposals quantify a demand reduction in kW alongside a saving in kWh. If they do not, you are selling half the value.
The grid, not the pipeline, is the binding constraint
Vietnam built generation faster than it built wires, and the bill has come due. Solar projects recorded an average capacity factor of around 15% over the first ten months of 2025, with curtailment worst in high-hydropower periods; storms and flooding in October and November 2025 produced an oversupplied system and heavy curtailment. The 500 kV Circuit 3 line, 520 km completed in August 2024, lifted the North to Central corridor from 2,500 MW to 5,000 MW. It helped. It did not solve it.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | The revised plan puts about USD 18.1 billion into transmission across 2026 to 2030, against average spending of roughly USD 700 million a year over the preceding five years. That is a step change in required delivery, not in intent. |
| Where it is concentrated | The Central and South Central regions, where generation is concentrated and the export corridors to the load centres are the limiting factor. |
| Who captures the value | Substation and high-voltage contractors, cable and equipment suppliers, protection and control specialists — and, increasingly, storage, which is the only way to move renewable output in time rather than in space. |
| Timing | Continuous through the decade, and gated by EVN’s ability to fund and deliver. |
| What to watch | Whether transmission spending actually lands at the planned rate. Historic investment in the 500 kV grid grew steadily but consistently fell short of target on EVN funding constraints. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
Curtailment is uncompensated. Yield assumptions taken from irradiance rather than from dispatch history overstate revenue, and lenders now know it.
What to change now
Model output net of a curtailment assumption specific to the region and the connection point, and say so in the proposal. Doing it openly is a credibility advantage in this market.
How to know it is working
Delivered output against modelled output on your own reference sites, tracked by region. It is the only curtailment data anyone will believe.
Storage stopped being a concept and became a tariff
The revised Power Development Plan 8 lifted the battery storage target to 10,000 to 16,300 MW by 2030, from a few hundred megawatts previously planned. Circular 62/2025/TT-BCT then took effect on 26 January 2026, giving standalone storage connected at 110 kV or above and rated at 10 MW or more a two-part tariff with a capacity component. Vietnam became the first major ASEAN economy to pay storage for being available rather than only for energy moved.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | A target of 10 to 16.3 GW inside five years, from a base near zero, in a system that is already curtailing renewable output. The demand driver and the policy driver point the same way, which is unusual. |
| Where it is concentrated | Co-located with existing solar and wind in the Central and South Central regions, at constrained grid nodes, and behind the meter at large industrial loads once the capacity charge bites. |
| Who captures the value | Integrators, high-voltage EPCs, controls and SCADA specialists, fire and safety engineering, and O&M businesses prepared to warrant availability. |
| Timing | Now for early movers. The framework exists; several implementing details do not yet. |
| What to watch | Ceiling tariffs, investor selection criteria and how storage projects are admitted to the power development plan. Circular 62 created the revenue model; the route to a bankable project is still being written. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
A genuinely new revenue line, and a set of warranty, insurance and safety obligations most solar contractors here have never carried.
What to change now
Decide whether you own storage scope or subcontract it, and price that decision explicitly rather than absorbing it inside a solar rate.
How to know it is working
Margin on storage scope reported separately from solar scope. Blended, it looks healthy until commissioning.
Demand growth is the whole thesis, and it is policy-driven
The Ministry of Industry and Trade projects electricity demand growth of 10 to 12% under normal conditions and up to 15% in an extreme scenario, tied to the 2026 to 2030 socio-economic plan and its minimum 10% annual GDP target. Generation and imports reached 171.54 billion kWh in the first half of 2026, up 9.85% year on year. Vietnam is one of very few markets where the demand argument does not need to be made.
| The shift | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Pace and scale | Nearly 10% growth delivered in the first half of 2026, against a plan that assumes the same or better every year to 2030. EVN is targeting savings of at least 3% of commercial electricity and 10% of peak-month consumption in the 2026 dry season. |
| Where it is concentrated | Industrial production, foreign-invested manufacturing, data centres and the North, which carries the tightest supply position in the dry season. |
| Who captures the value | Almost every segment of the supply chain. Growth this fast forgives a great deal, which is precisely why unit economics get neglected here. |
| Timing | Through the plan period, with the risk sitting on the downside of the GDP assumption rather than on the demand response to it. |
| What to watch | Whether growth is met with supply or with demand management. The June 2023 northern shortage cost the economy roughly USD 1.4 billion, about 0.3% of GDP, and that memory is shaping policy. |
Where this shows up in the P&L
Revenue growth that hides a deteriorating margin position for several years, because volume keeps arriving whether or not pricing is disciplined.
What to change now
Set and govern a margin floor while the market is still growing. It is far cheaper to hold one now than to recover one later.
How to know it is working
Gross margin by segment, tracked monthly. If revenue is up and margin percentage is drifting down, growth is being bought.
Where the openings are, who they suit, and what it takes to be credible in them.
Corporate renewable supply under an expanded DPPA
Vietnam’s export manufacturing base is bound by its customers’ decarbonisation commitments. Nike, Samsung and Lego are among the buyers already using the direct purchase mechanism, and Foxconn and Brookfield have partnered on up to 1 GW of renewable capacity. Decree 243/2026 then cut the physical DPPA threshold from 200,000 kWh a month to 20,000 and admitted zone retailers, data centres and charging operators. The buyer set is now materially larger than the supply.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | Development and supply of DPPA-eligible generation, plus structuring, registration, technical advisory, EPC and O&M around it — and demand aggregation at industrial-park level, which is newly possible. |
| Who it suits | Developers with connectable land and credible sponsors, zone operators and licensed retailers, and advisers who can get an arrangement registered and announced by the system operator. |
| Deal size and cycle | Tens to hundreds of megawatts on multi-year development cycles for grid-connected projects; considerably faster for private-line arrangements inside a single industrial park. |
| Capability required | Grid and connection capability, a bankable counterparty, and enough balance sheet to carry development cost through an approval process you do not control. |
| Competitive intensity | Rising at the developer end and thin at the structuring end. Corporate demand is not the scarce thing here; deliverable, registrable supply is. |
Where the revenue comes from
Long-dated supply revenue after an unpaid development period. The cash profile, not the demand, is what eliminates entrants.
What to build or buy
Development capital or a partner who has it, and the regulatory capability to complete a registration rather than start one.
How to test it cheaply
Take one private-line arrangement inside a single industrial park all the way through. It is the fastest complete lesson in the mechanism available.
Behind-the-meter solar for factories and industrial parks
Decree 58/2025/ND-CP allows self-production and self-consumption rooftop solar on any building or building-like structure, regardless of ownership, which opened industrial zones properly for the first time. Decree 243/2026 then raised the surplus export cap from 20% to 50% of output, with more permitted to 2030 where the regional grid can absorb it. Against a retail price of 2,204.0655 VND per kWh and a capacity charge arriving on the same bill, the commercial case is not the hard part.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | Rooftop, canopy and ground-mount solar for manufacturing, logistics, cold chain, commercial and institutional customers, sized around self-consumption with export as upside rather than as the case. |
| Who it suits | Installers and commercial developers with structural, electrical and design capability, and anyone able to offer or arrange financing to a foreign-invested tenant. |
| Deal size and cycle | Systems from hundreds of kilowatts to several megawatts across a park, contracted in weeks to months, with landlord consent and financing usually the long poles. |
| Capability required | Load-profile modelling, roof structural assessment, grid registration handling, and a savings model that reconciles against a two-component bill. |
| Competitive intensity | High and fragmented on price, thin on capability. Much of the market still quotes against the old 20% export cap and a single blended tariff. |
Where the revenue comes from
Installation revenue first, then monitoring, maintenance and expansion across a tenant base that talks to itself. One park done properly generates the next five.
What to build or buy
A load-profile-led sizing method and a financing option. Those two address both reasons these deals stall.
How to test it cheaply
Deliver one reference site per vertical, publish measured self-consumption and savings, and sell the next from meter data rather than simulation.
Storage, from grid-scale to behind the meter
Circular 62/2025/TT-BCT took effect on 26 January 2026 with a two-part tariff for standalone storage at 110 kV and above and 10 MW and above, against a revised plan target of 10,000 to 16,300 MW by 2030. Behind the meter, the two-component retail tariff makes peak-demand reduction directly billable. Both ends of the storage market acquired a revenue model within a few months of each other.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | Grid-scale storage delivery and service, storage co-located with curtailed solar and wind, and commercial storage sold on capacity-charge management. |
| Who it suits | High-voltage EPCs, integrators, controls and SCADA specialists, and O&M businesses willing to contract on availability rather than on delivery. |
| Deal size and cycle | Grid-scale projects in the tens of millions of dollars on multi-year cycles; commercial storage in the hundreds of thousands on a quarterly cycle. |
| Capability required | Demonstrated fire and safety engineering, grid code compliance, and the ability to stand behind an availability figure for the contract term. |
| Competitive intensity | Low at the technical end, and about to be crowded at the supply end as the framework details are finalised. |
Where the revenue comes from
Delivery revenue first, then a long service and availability relationship. The second is worth more and is priced worse across this whole market.
What to build or buy
Availability warranting capability — the monitoring, response and spares position that lets you contract on uptime.
How to test it cheaply
Take one commercial storage project on a genuine availability contract and measure what holding that promise costs over twelve months.
Delivering the 2030 programme
The revised plan requires the system to roughly double by 2030, with about USD 118.2 billion of generation investment across 2026 to 2030. Vietnam has done fast builds before — the 2019 to 2021 solar rush proved the market can move — but that was a simpler technology on a shorter cycle. This programme adds storage, LNG, transmission and eventually offshore wind and nuclear, all at once.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | EPC, balance of plant, civil and structural, high-voltage electrical, commissioning and testing, and long-term O&M across the whole awarded pipeline. |
| Who it suits | Contractors with a verifiable utility-scale record, specialist subcontractors, and the equipment and service suppliers behind them. |
| Deal size and cycle | Contracts from the millions to the hundreds of millions of dollars, on programme cycles with long defect liability tails. |
| Capability required | Licensed and accredited labour under contract rather than assumed, and safety and quality systems a lender’s technical adviser will accept. |
| Competitive intensity | High on price and low on proven capability. The distance between those two is the entire opportunity. |
Where the revenue comes from
Milestone construction revenue with retentions, followed by O&M. The cash profile is demanding, and it is the most common reason capable contractors fail on programme work.
What to build or buy
Contracted crew capacity ahead of award rather than after it. Everyone bidding is chasing the same certified people.
How to test it cheaply
Bid one project priced from your own actual cost base rather than the market rate, and decline it if the number does not win. Knowing that is worth more than the project.
Data centres and digital infrastructure
Vietnam’s data centre pipeline exceeded 500 MW at September 2025 across built, under-construction and announced facilities. Foreign ownership of data centre, cloud and over-the-top services rose to 100% under the Telecommunications Law framework from 1 January 2025, from a previous 49% cap. Decree 243/2026 then made data centre operators eligible for direct renewable purchase. Three separate constraints were removed inside eighteen months.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | Power and cooling engineering, high-voltage electrical, standby and on-site generation, storage, commissioning, and renewable supply structuring under the DPPA. |
| Who it suits | Businesses with international-standard documentation, certifications and references, and the patience for a long qualification process. |
| Deal size and cycle | Large contracts on long cycles, with formal technical qualification before anyone is invited to price. |
| Capability required | Certified quality and safety systems, uptime references, and a documentation standard set by international procurement rather than by local practice. |
| Competitive intensity | Moderate and heavily filtered. Most competitors are eliminated at qualification rather than on price. |
Where the revenue comes from
Long contracts with strong counterparties, won slowly. Cash flow is good once you are in and non-existent while you are qualifying.
What to build or buy
The qualification pack — certifications, references, insurances and method statements — before the first approach rather than after it.
How to test it cheaply
Submit to one qualification process and read the feedback honestly. It is the cheapest capability audit available in this market.
Grid, substations and connection engineering
Transmission and distribution remain closed to foreign ownership and reserved to EVN, while the revised plan calls for roughly USD 18.1 billion of transmission investment across 2026 to 2030 against historic spending near USD 700 million a year. Resolution 70-NQ/TW opened the door to public-private partnership in transmission. The commercial position is unusual and worth stating plainly: you can sell into this, supply it and build it, but you generally cannot own it.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | Substation and line construction, transformers, switchgear, cable, protection and control, SCADA, testing and commissioning, and grid connection engineering for developers. |
| Who it suits | Equipment manufacturers and their channel, high-voltage contractors, and engineering firms with EVN-acceptable references. |
| Deal size and cycle | Procurement-led, on long qualification and tender cycles, with payment terms set by a counterparty under its own funding pressure. |
| Capability required | Local entity, technical qualification with EVN and its subsidiaries, and the working capital to carry a state-utility payment cycle. |
| Competitive intensity | Moderate, and structurally favourable to suppliers who have already been qualified. Getting on the list is most of the work. |
Where the revenue comes from
Equipment and construction revenue on tender cycles, plus a service and spares tail. It is a volume business with a slow cash conversion cycle.
What to build or buy
Qualification and a local delivery presence. Neither can be acquired quickly, which is exactly why the position is defensible once held.
How to test it cheaply
Track EVN’s actual transmission spend against plan for two quarters before committing capacity. Historic delivery has run behind target on funding.
EV charging and electrified transport
V-Green announced roughly VND 10 trillion, about USD 380 million, in March 2026 to build 99 fast-charging hubs on national and provincial highways by the end of 2026, each with up to 100 points at up to 150 kW, and said it would run them on wind and solar with battery storage. Decree 243/2026 made charging and battery-swapping operators at 22 kV and above eligible to buy renewable power directly. Charging in Vietnam is becoming an energy business, not a parking business.
| The opportunity | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| The opening | High-power charging infrastructure, grid connection and upgrade works, on-site solar and storage, energy management software, and operations and maintenance. |
| Who it suits | Electrical contractors, power electronics and equipment suppliers, storage integrators, and software businesses that can price against a capacity charge. |
| Deal size and cycle | Site-by-site rollout on a fast, repeatable cycle, with the connection application usually the critical path. |
| Capability required | High-power connection engineering, national delivery capacity, and service response across dispersed sites. |
| Competitive intensity | Concentrated around a small number of large domestic programmes, and thinner in the independent and destination-charging segments. |
Where the revenue comes from
Build revenue on a repeating rollout, then a long service relationship. Uptime is the product, and it is where the margin sits.
What to build or buy
Repeatable site delivery — standardised design, connection process and commissioning — rather than a bespoke approach per site.
How to test it cheaply
Deliver one cluster of sites and measure true cost per site including connection delay. That number decides whether the rollout is a business.
The constraints that most often cost money here, and what to do about each one.
Grid connection and network constraints
For developers and C&I providers, network constraints can turn a commercially attractive project into a delayed or lower-value opportunity — often after commitments have already been made to customers and financiers. Vietnam is the clearest case of it in the region: solar ran at an average capacity factor of about 15% over the first ten months of 2025, curtailment is uncompensated, and generation sits in the Central regions while the load sits at either end of the country.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Connection queue position | Revenue recognised months or years after the sale is booked. |
| Export limits applied at approval | Modelled yield and customer savings fall after pricing is fixed. |
| Network augmentation timelines | Delivery dates sit outside the control of the business selling the project. |
| Site-by-site hosting capacity | Otherwise identical sites carry materially different risk. |
| Re-approval after design change | Late redesign cost absorbed inside a fixed-price contract. |
Qualify sites against network reality early
Screen hosting capacity and queue position before a proposal is priced. Declining a site costs less than carrying it.
Hold optionality in contracts
Price connection risk explicitly and tie milestones to network decisions rather than calendar dates.
Spread the pipeline across connection risk
A portfolio mixed across constrained and unconstrained sites keeps cash moving when one approval slips.
Margin compression and price competition
Volume growth can mask a deteriorating unit economic position for several reporting periods, and tendering on price alone rewards the least disciplined quoting. Vietnam adds a ceiling from above as well as pressure from below: generation tariffs are set within published price frameworks, project returns are capped — Circular 12/2025/TT-BCT works to an internal rate of return of 12% — and direct purchase pricing sits under the same renewable ceilings.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Price-only tendering | Work won at margins that cannot fund the service obligations attached to it. |
| Undifferentiated commodity offer | Engineering and service value given away inside the unit price. |
| Discretionary discounting in the field | Margin lost on deals that were already winnable. |
| Risk absorbed rather than priced | Variations and rework carried by the business, not by the contract. |
| Aggregate margin reporting | Loss-making segments hidden inside a healthy blended number. |
Separate the commodity from the engineering
Quote hardware, engineering and service as distinct value. Buyers can only pay for what the proposal makes visible.
Set and govern a gross-margin floor
Define the floor, approve exceptions deliberately and decline work below it.
Report margin by segment, product and channel
Blended margin hides the problem. Win-loss by margin band shows which discounts were never needed.
Skilled labour and delivery capacity
Businesses win work they cannot deliver to the promised timeline, then absorb the cost in rework, subcontractor premiums and lost customer goodwill. In Vietnam the arithmetic is stark: the plan requires a further 93 to 146 GW of capacity inside five years, alongside a transmission programme, an LNG programme and the first nuclear project — all competing for the same high-voltage engineers and commissioning teams.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Accredited labour availability | Growth capped by crews rather than by demand. |
| Regional concentration of demand | Travel, accommodation and downtime erode project margin. |
| Selling ahead of capability | Timeline slippage, churn and warranty exposure. |
| Emergency subcontracting | Premium rates paid at the point of least negotiating power. |
| Crew utilisation visibility | Idle capacity in one region while another is oversold. |
Express growth in delivery terms
State the plan as crews, capability and locations, not revenue. Sales targets that outrun capacity become churn.
Price scarce labour properly
Decide which segments are worth crew time, and recover the true cost of the labour they consume.
Plan capacity in the same forecast as pipeline
Review both monthly in one meeting. Separate meetings produce separate assumptions.
Supply chain and equipment risk
Long lead times force stock commitments ahead of contracted demand, putting working capital at risk against a falling price curve. Vietnam manufactures solar modules at very large scale, which makes local supply look simple — but that industry is built for export and was hit with final United States antidumping and countervailing determinations in April 2025 at rates up to 271.28% and 542.64%, on top of a 20% reciprocal tariff. Inverters, batteries and balance of plant remain imported and priced in dollars.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Long lead times | Capital committed before demand is contracted. |
| Landed-cost movement | Quotes priced from list prices lose margin in transit. |
| Manufacturer warranty risk | The obligation sits with the installer in practice, whatever the paperwork says. |
| Supplier withdrawal | A service book stranded on unsupported product. |
| Approved-product sprawl | Training, spares and diagnostics cost multiplies. |
Treat inventory as a financing decision
Review stock monthly against contracted demand rather than procurement habit.
Diversify product without fragmenting the stack
Hold two credible options per category. More than that raises delivery cost without reducing risk.
Score suppliers on more than price
Track warranty response, technical support and delivery reliability so renewals are a commercial conversation.
Customer acquisition cost and trust
Lead costs have risen while conversion rates have not, and businesses buying leads without measuring cost per contracted dollar are usually funding a competitor’s education process. Vietnam carries a specific version of this: the rules have been rewritten three times since October 2024, and a buyer who took quotes in 2025 and again in 2026 received two irreconcilable answers on export limits, eligibility and payback — through no fault of either seller.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Longer evaluation cycles | Sales cost per deal rises before revenue does. |
| More competitive quotes per buyer | Price pressure concentrated at the point of decision. |
| Unverified performance claims | A trust discount applied to every proposal. |
| Lead spend without attribution | Budget concentrated in the worst-converting channels. |
| A finance buyer in C&I | Product-led proposals lose to modelled savings and risk allocation. |
Make trust a mechanism, not a message
Publish verifiable performance data, transparent assumptions and references in the buyer’s own segment.
Write for the buyer who signs
For C&I, lead with modelled savings and risk allocation rather than product specification.
Measure cost per contracted dollar
Track it by channel and reallocate quarterly. It is usually the fastest margin improvement available.
Capital access and project finance
Deposits, stock, labour and retention terms mean cash leaves the business well before it returns, and lenders remain cautious about concentrated counterparty and technology risk. In Vietnam the bankability gap is well documented and specific: no sovereign guarantee behind EVN’s payment obligations, minimum contracted output below international lender norms, uncompensated curtailment, Vietnamese governing law on power contracts, and a USD 15.5 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership that has been slow to disburse.
| The constraint | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| Negative cash conversion cycle | Growth consumes cash faster than it generates it. |
| Retention and milestone terms | Profit recognised long before it is collected. |
| Lender caution on the sector | Facility size limited regardless of the order book. |
| PPA, lease and EaaS structures | Covenant, guarantee and ownership requirements the business is not structured to meet. |
| Reporting that is not fundable | Diligence stalls on data the business cannot produce. |
Match the funding structure to the offer
Decide which customers are sold capex and which are offered a financed product, and who carries performance risk in each case.
Model cash conversion alongside revenue
A growth plan without a cash plan is a funding request in disguise.
Start the fundability work early
Getting reporting, contracts and performance data into a fundable state takes roughly twelve months.
The rules that decide what you may sell, how you get paid, and what it costs to comply.
A new Electricity Law, and the decrees are still landing
The Electricity Law 2024 was passed on 30 November 2024 and took effect on 1 February 2025, replacing a framework that dated from 2004. Decrees 56, 57 and 58 of 2025 all issued on 3 March 2025 covering gas-to-power, direct purchase and renewable development; Decision 768/QD-TTg revised the power development plan on 15 April 2025; Circulars 12/2025 and 62/2025 set generation and storage pricing; and Decree 243/2026 amended the direct purchase framework again on 26 June 2026.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | Compliance with a framework whose operative detail sits in decrees and circulars rather than in the law itself, and which has been amended repeatedly within a single planning cycle. |
| Who it applies to | Every generator, supplier, large consumer and service provider in the sector. Even businesses that only sell equipment are affected through their customers’ eligibility. |
| Cost and lead time | The recurring internal cost of keeping proposals, contracts and models current. It is small per change and significant in aggregate. |
| Change risk | High, and demonstrably so. Two amendments to the direct purchase mechanism inside sixteen months is the pattern, not an exception. |
| What to verify locally | The current version of the instrument, not the one your template was written against. In this market that is the single most common source of an incorrect quote. |
Exposure to check
Whether anything in the field still quotes a 200,000 kWh DPPA threshold or a 20% export cap. Both were superseded on 26 June 2026.
What to put in place
A named owner for regulatory change and a fixed review cycle for quoting tools and proposal templates, rather than a review triggered by a client query.
What to monitor
Ministry of Industry and Trade circulars and government decrees. The law is stable; everything that decides your economics is not.
Direct purchase, and a competitive retail market from 2027
Decree 57/2025/ND-CP replaced the original DPPA decree on 3 March 2025 and Decree 243/2026/ND-CP amended it on 26 June 2026, cutting the physical DPPA threshold to 20,000 kWh a month and admitting zone retailers, data centres and charging operators. Behind that sits Resolution 70-NQ/TW of 20 August 2025, which targets a competitive retail electricity market from 1 January 2027 and EVN restructuring during 2026. The system operator was already separated from EVN in August 2024.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | Registration and announcement of participation by the national system operator, compliance with the applicable model — private line or national grid — and pricing within the published renewable ceilings. |
| Who it applies to | Renewable generators, large consumers above the applicable threshold, and now licensed retailers inside industrial parks, economic zones and clusters. |
| Cost and lead time | Structuring, registration and legal cost per arrangement, and for a grid-connected project the full development timeline before any of it earns. |
| Change risk | High. The retail market target date is policy, the cost-allocation rules are unresolved, and EVN has publicly objected to parts of the expansion. |
| What to verify locally | Whether your specific customer and structure qualify under the current decree, and whether the arrangement has actually been announced by the system operator rather than merely applied for. |
Exposure to check
Whether a commercial case assumes a saving that a two-component bill will not deliver. A direct-purchase customer still pays the grid for backup capacity.
What to put in place
A qualification test against the current thresholds, applied before a proposal is written, and a model that shows the capacity charge explicitly.
What to monitor
Progress toward the January 2027 retail market, the cost-allocation rules that go with it, and any further amendment to the direct purchase decrees.
You can own the plant. You cannot own the wires.
Vietnam is among the more open markets in the region for generation: 100% foreign ownership of a solar or onshore wind generating company is permitted, with no joint venture requirement and no general equity cap of the kind Malaysia applies. Transmission and distribution are a different matter — they remain reserved to EVN and closed to foreign ownership. Offshore wind is treated separately again, with ownership restrictions and state-owned enterprise participation.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | A Vietnamese entity, inclusion of the project in the provincial power development plan, investment policy approval, investment and enterprise registration certificates, an offtake route, and an operating licence for plants at 1 MW and above. |
| Who it applies to | Foreign investors developing generation. Equipment supply, engineering and services businesses face a materially more open position. |
| Cost and lead time | Entity formation, approvals and licensing measured in months rather than weeks, and heavily dependent on documentation quality. |
| Change risk | Moderate. The Law on Investment 143/2025/QH15 took effect on 1 March 2026 and the conditional business lines were revised alongside it. |
| What to verify locally | Whether your intended activity is generation, supply, retail or services. The four sit in different places on the ownership map and the distinction is easy to blur inside a contract. |
Exposure to check
Whether an entry model assumes an ownership position that the licence will not support, particularly anything that touches network assets.
What to put in place
A structure decided against the licence you actually need rather than against a general foreign investment rule. The two give different answers.
What to monitor
Implementation of the 2025 investment law and its conditional business lines, and any change to the treatment of private and offshore network assets.
Retroactive review, and the non-retroactivity problem
The 2023 Government Inspectorate conclusion, Resolution 233/NQ-CP of 10 December 2024 and EVN’s application of temporary tariffs from January 2025 together create a category of risk that most international models do not carry: an operating asset with a signed contract having its revenue administratively reduced pending a compliance determination. Investors have argued this conflicts with the non-retroactivity principle in Resolution 68-NQ/TW. The argument is not settled.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | That preferential feed-in rates apply only to projects meeting the eligibility criteria, with violations attributable to the developer disqualifying the project from the preferential price. |
| Who it applies to | Projects commissioned under the feed-in regimes, their owners, lenders, contractors and service providers — and anyone acquiring such an asset. |
| Cost and lead time | Legal and technical review per asset, and potentially a long period of reduced payment while a determination is made. |
| Change risk | High and two-directional. A settlement mechanism would materially reduce the country risk premium; continued case-by-case handling would not. |
| What to verify locally | Construction permits, land use conversion, acceptance certification and commercial operation date evidence for any project you rely on commercially. |
Exposure to check
Whether your receivables, warranties or service contracts are concentrated on assets that could be affected. Concentration is the real exposure here, not the individual project.
What to put in place
Compliance diligence as a standard qualification step, and payment terms that do not assume an uninterrupted offtake revenue stream at the counterparty.
What to monitor
Any government decision that resolves the dispute class as a whole. That announcement, whenever it comes, reprices Vietnamese offtake risk in a single step.
Offshore wind: a large target with no approved project
Offshore wind was the headline of the original power development plan and is now its clearest example of a target outrunning a framework. The revised plan reset the range at 6,000 to 17,032 MW and moved it to 2035. Decree 58/2025 established the first real regulatory basis. Survey progress has begun — a sea area allocation for survey at Nam Bo in Vinh Long in November 2025, and a survey licence to Pacifico Energy for a 500 MW project in Ba Ria–Vung Tau in April 2026 — but no project has received formal investment approval.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | Marine spatial planning, sea area allocation for survey, investor selection, in-principle approval, and for foreign investors a restricted equity position with state-owned enterprise participation. |
| Who it applies to | Developers and, indirectly, the ports, vessels, foundations and installation supply chain that would have to exist for delivery. |
| Cost and lead time | Very high and very long, against a framework where several steps have no established precedent. |
| Change risk | High. The target has already moved once by five years, and the December 2025 National Assembly resolution altered approval authority again. |
| What to verify locally | Whether an opportunity presented as an offshore wind project has actually cleared investor selection, or holds only a survey right. The two are commonly conflated. |
Exposure to check
Whether any part of your plan depends on offshore wind reaching construction this decade. Port and installation capacity alone makes 2030 delivery difficult.
What to put in place
Treat offshore wind as an option on a later market rather than a near-term revenue line, and resource it accordingly.
What to monitor
The first formal investment approval, the pilot allocations to state-owned enterprises, and port and supply chain commitments. Those, not the target, are the signal.
Nuclear and carbon: both announced, neither operating
Vietnam revived its nuclear programme and signed an intergovernmental agreement with Russia on 23 March 2026 for Ninh Thuan 1 — two VVER-1200 units, 2,400 MW, targeted to be online before the end of 2031, with both Ninh Thuan plants aimed at 2035. On carbon, a market pilot is planned to the end of 2028. Both belong in a long-range view of the market. Neither should carry weight in a commercial case being written this year.
| The requirement | The commercial impact |
|---|---|
| What the rule requires | Nothing yet for most businesses. The nuclear programme sits with state entities and their selected international partners; the carbon framework is still being built. |
| Who it applies to | On nuclear, a narrow set of qualified suppliers and the local content chain around them. On carbon, energy-intensive and export-exposed manufacturers first. |
| Cost and lead time | Unquantified in both cases. No official carbon price has been set, and the nuclear schedule is at the very start of a long path. |
| Change risk | High. The Ninh Thuan projects were cancelled once before, in 2016, and the partner for Ninh Thuan 2 has already changed. |
| What to verify locally | The current status before any figure enters a client’s financial model. A pilot quoted as a live obligation is a credibility problem you do not need. |
Exposure to check
Whether a carbon price appears anywhere in a proposal as an assumption. If it does, show it as a scenario and state the policy status alongside it.
What to put in place
A version of the commercial case with and without a carbon price, so a policy decision becomes a switch rather than a rebuild.
What to monitor
Construction start at Ninh Thuan 1, the partner arrangement for Ninh Thuan 2, and the design of the carbon market pilot.
Business Consulting Services in Vietnam
The same four practices we bring to every market we advise in, applied to Vietnamese conditions.
01StrategyKnow where to play before you commit capital.
Which Vietnamese segments justify your capital and which do not — across a direct purchase market whose eligible buyer set grew tenfold in June 2026, a rooftop segment reopened by a 50% export cap, a storage market that acquired its first tariff in January 2026, and a grid that decides which of them can actually be dispatched. The market is large enough to reward focus and volatile enough to punish a plan built on last year’s rules.
- Market and competitor assessment
- Proposition and pricing strategy
- Commercial case and planning
02OperationsReduce the cost and friction of running the business.
Delivery cost, crew capacity and operating model — the work that protects margin when the plan requires a further 93 to 146 GW inside five years, when high-voltage engineers are the binding constraint across generation, transmission and LNG at the same time, and when curtailment means a delivered project does not always earn what it was modelled to earn.
- Operating model and structure
- Process and delivery cost
- Commercial governance and reporting
03Sales & MarketingTurn your lead pipeline into contracted revenue.
Demand generation, qualification and bid execution built for how Vietnamese buyers actually purchase — from a foreign-invested manufacturer buying against an RE100 commitment, through a hyperscale data centre qualification process, to a finance director reconciling your savings model against a bill that now separates capacity from energy.
- Go-to-market and channel design
- Pipeline and conversion discipline
- Bid, tender and proposal support
04Agentic AIPut AI to work where it can produce a measurable return.
Automation and AI applied where they change unit economics — quoting against a two-component tariff, load-profile and curtailment modelling, eligibility screening under decrees that keep moving, and registration and compliance documentation — sequenced against a business case rather than a pilot. Where skilled people are the constraint, anything that removes work from them is a capacity decision.
- Opportunity assessment and business case
- Workflow automation
- Data, reporting and AI enablement
Growing Your Business in Vietnam
Most conversations start in one of five places. Find the one that describes your position.
01Entering the marketFor international companies assessing Vietnam.
Whether Vietnam justifies the investment, and which entry model fits. Generation is open to full foreign ownership while transmission and distribution are not, and offshore wind is restricted again. The most common error is choosing a structure against a general foreign investment rule rather than against the licence the business actually needs.
- Market and competitor assessment
- Entry model and partner selection
- Commercial case and first-year plan
02ExpandingFor businesses increasing market share, geographic coverage or customer penetration.
Which segment, region or customer type to take next, and whether you can serve it profitably. In Vietnam the fastest expansion available right now is usually a re-qualification exercise rather than a new geography — Decree 243 moved a large part of the mid-market inside the direct purchase threshold overnight.
- Segment and geographic prioritisation
- Proposition and pricing for the new segment
- Channel and partnership build-out
03Improving performanceFor businesses dealing with margin, revenue, productivity or operational issues.
Where value is leaking — pricing, mix, conversion or delivery cost — and fixing it in order of impact. Here it is often a savings model that cannot reproduce a two-component bill, a yield assumption that ignores curtailment, or growth so fast that a deteriorating margin has gone unnoticed for two years.
- Margin and mix discovery call
- Pricing and quoting discipline
- Sales conversion and delivery cost
04ScalingFor businesses whose operating model is not keeping pace with growth.
Rebuilding the operating model — structure, process, systems and commercial governance — so growth stops costing more than it earns. In a market growing electricity demand at 10 to 12% a year, revenue targets set without capacity planning become schedule failures rather than stretch goals.
- Operating model and structure
- Commercial process and governance
- Systems and reporting
05TransformingFor businesses looking at technology, automation and AI.
Where technology and AI genuinely change the economics of the business — quoting, design, eligibility screening, registration documentation and back office — and how to sequence the work so it pays before it scales.
- Opportunity assessment and business case
- Automation of commercial workflow
- Data, reporting and AI enablement
Talk to Us about Your Position in Vietnam.
A scoping call is a working conversation, not a pitch. Tell us where you sit in the Vietnamese market and we will tell you plainly whether we can help.