As banks shun coal, Vietnam emerges an unlikely solar champion
Solar array atop Intel’s Vietnam assembly and test factory in Ho Chi Minh City.
(Reference image by Intel Free Press, Wikimedia Commons).
Nguyen Tuan was watching the sun shine down on his four-hectare cantaloupe farm in southern Vietnam when he realized it could do more than help his crops grow.
The 46-year-old installed 40 solar panels on greenhouses at his farm 55 miles outside of Ho Chi Minh City. Thanks to generous subsidies from the national utility, he not only cut his power bill but now earns about two million dong ($87) a month selling excess electricity to the nation’s grid.