The country’s biggest renewable energy project – including solar and wind power plants with total design capacity of 350 Megawatts (MW) – will be put into operation in the coastal province of Ninh Thuan on April 30.

General Director of Trung Nam Group Nguyen Tam Tien said the 246-hectare solar and wind power complex would supply 401 million kWh each year for the provincial and national energy grid, and earn annual revenue of US$71 million from power sales.

Tien said the plants would employ 2,000 local workers starting from the end of April.

He said the Trung Nam Solar Power Company, a member of the Trung Nam Group, had invested nearly VND5 trillion ($222.2 million) in the first large-scale solar and wind energy hybrid project in coastal Thuan Bac District.

The project, on which construction began last year, has installed 705,000 solar panels and 45 large wind turbines, each 76m tall.

Last year, Trung Nam and the Electric Power Trading Company under Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) signed a power purchase agreement from the renewable energy complex at a price of VND2,086 (9.35 cents) per kWh.

Trung Nam also started construction of a 165MW solar power plant in the southern province of Tra Vinh in January. — VNS