Assessment of rooftop solar power technical potential in Hanoi city, Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam has great solar energy potential, in which photovoltaic (PV) power technology is developing rapidly in Vietnam and the investors are very interested in constructing the PV power station. Building the rooftop PV power stations can save monthly electricity costs for the owners and can sell the excess electricity from the PV power station to the power grid to get the economic benefits. Solar radiation in the Northern area in general and in Hanoi city, in particular, is lower than other provinces and cities in the Central area and the Southern area in Vietnam. The development of the rooftop solar power business in Hanoi is also affected because there is no specific assessment of the potential of this kind of solar energy. In this paper, the technical potential of rooftop solar power in Hanoi city is evaluated by using high-resolution remote sensing images technology, it can be seen that the total annual installed capacity of rooftop PV power and the PV optimal in Hanoi city are about 13,169.72 MWp and 37,591,481.20 MWh/year, respectively. Otherwise, the annual operation data of a rooftop PV power station in Hanoi is also collected to evaluate the efficiency in the real working condition, it is found that the payback in the case of actual operations is about 1 year longer than the theoretical calculation.