Community Alignment and Investment Excellence: Unveiling Saowalak Maliwan’s Leadership Strategy at Super Energy Corporation for Sustainable Growth in Vietnam

1. Building strong ties with government agencies and local communities is crucial. How do you plan to foster positive relationships, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations and community needs?

Evaluating Vietnam’s renewable energy investment scenario involves several steps:

a. Assessing Market Potential:

• Vietnam has a high potential for renewable energy development, especially in solar and wind energy. The country has a relatively high annual sunshine duration and similar conditions favorable for wind power.
• The government has set ambitious targets for renewable energy production, aiming to increase the proportion of renewables in its energy mix. This provides a conducive policy environment for investment.

b. Reviewing Regulatory Framework:

• Vietnam has implemented several policies to promote renewable energy, including Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs), tax incentives, and a supportive legal framework.
• The FiTs have been particularly successful in driving solar PV deployment, but there have been challenges including grid capacity and adjustments to the FiT rates.

c. Analyzing Market Challenges:

• Grid infrastructure in Vietnam can be a bottleneck, with the rapid increase in renewable projects leading to curtailment issues.
• Financing can also be a challenge, as the cost of capital in Vietnam can be high, and there may be a lack of familiarity with funding renewable projects.

d. Understanding the Competitive Landscape:

• There is increasing interest from both local and international developers in Vietnam’s renewable energy market.
• Competition can be expected to increase as the market matures and more players enter.

For Super Energy Corporation PLC to capitalize on emerging opportunities, a multi-faceted strategy could include:

a. Market Entry and Partnership Strategies:

• Consider forming joint ventures with local firms that have existing relationships and understanding of the local regulatory and business environment.
• Explore Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) or Green Bond for larger-scale projects.

b. Diversification of Technology Portfolio:

• While solar and wind are the most prominent, exploring other renewable technologies like biomass, small-scale hydro or waste to energy could present niche opportunities.
• Diversification can also mean investing across the value chain, including manufacturing of components, to capture more value.
• Storage solutions, such as battery systems, can help stabilize the grid and enable the integration of more intermittent renewables.

c. Financing Models:

• Explore various financing options, including green bonds, international climate finance mechanisms, or partnership with multilateral development banks that can offer lower-cost capital.
• Consider offering innovative financing solutions to potential customers, such as Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), which can make renewable energy projects more viable.

d. Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility:

• Focus on projects that not only provide financial returns but also contribute to local communities and preserve the environment.
• Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives can enhance the company’s reputation and secure its social license to operate.

e. Technological Innovation:

• Stay at the forefront of technological advancements in renewable energy to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
• Leverage digital tools for better integration of renewables into the grid and for more efficient project management.

By addressing these strategic areas, Super Energy Corporation PLC can position itself to take advantage of the growth in Vietnam’s renewable energy sector. It’s important to continuously monitor the market and regulatory changes, as the rapid development of the sector can quickly alter the landscape and the viability of different strategies.

2. In light of Vietnam’s changing regulatory landscape, how would you handle complex regulatory challenges to ensure compliance and enhance the company’s investment portfolio?

There are some points that our company handle complex regulatory challenges to ensure compliance and enhance the company investment portfolio.

Understanding the Regulatory Landscape:

The power sector is subject to numerous regulations and compliance requirements, which can pose significant challenges for investor. To overcome these challenges, it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of the regulatory landscape. 

Taking of an example for this case is wind investment. There are Viet Nam’s legal framework in investment activities of power generation, power transmission projects: Vietnam’s Eight National Power Development Plan, Law of investment, Law on Electricity, Law of Natural Source and Sea…. Investor in this fields must familiarize themselves with EVN guidelines to ensure compliance.

Staying Updated with Changing Regulations

Regulations in this fields are constantly evolving and changing. To overcome regulatory challenges, investors must stay updated with the latest regulations and adapt their practices accordingly.

Seeking Professional advice and Guidance

Navigating the complex regulatory landscape of the power sector can be overwhelming for investors. Seeking professional advice and guidance can help overcome compliance challenges.

For example, hiring a regulatory consultant or working with a legal expert specializing in the power sectors can provide valuable insights and ensure compliance with regulations. These professionals can help us to understand the specific requirements of EVN through the necessary steps to achieve compliance.

In brief, overcoming regulatory and compliance challenges in the energy fields / power sectors requires a proactive approach. By understanding the regulatory landscape, staying updated with changing regulations, and seeking professional guidance, investors can navigate the complexities of compliance and achieve success in light of Vietnam’s changing regulatory landscape.

3. Building strong ties with government agencies and local communities is crucial. How do you plan to foster positive relationships, ensuring alignment with regulatory expectations and community needs?

One of the best ways to build relationships with local communities is to involve and empower them in your work. This means that you do not impose your agenda or solutions on them, but rather consult them, collaborate with them, and support their participation and ownership of the project or activity.

Focus on projects that not only provide financial returns but also contribute to local communities and preserve the environment.

Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives can enhance the company’s reputation and secure its social license to operate.

4. How would you structure financing arrangements for large-scale projects, considering both local and international financial institutions, to optimize capital deployment and returns?

Green Financing and Investment in Renewable Energy Projects require significant investment. Traditional funding mechanisms, such as government budgets and loans, often fall short in meeting the funding requirements of these large-scale ventures. Thus, considering both local and international financial institution allows investor to optimize capital deployment and returns.

Source of Financial Arranges 

In Vietnam, the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) is a good example. BIDV becomes the first bank to issue green bonds in compliance with the Green Bond Principles of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) in domestic market. The proceeds will be used to finance green, energy saving, emission reduction, and environmental protection projects. This green bond framework scored by Moody’s – the leading international credit rating agency. Green bond is an effective instrument to increase investor capacity in implementing their renewable energy project.  Unlike other financial instruments, green bonds allow investors to promote reputation, claim sustainability, and attract ethical investors. Green bonds provide capital at lower cost and with fewer restrictive covenants than bank loans, and are therefore an appealing source of funding.  

In addition, implementing best practices in securing international financing is essential for maximizing the chances of success and ensuring optimal use of resources. International financing provides a solution by offering access to capital from various sources, including multilateral institutions, private investors, and bilateral agreements. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have gained immense popularity in recent years as an innovative funding mechanism. In a PPP, a collaboration is formed between the government and a private entity to finance, develop, and operate a renewable energy project. This approach shares the financial burden between the public and private sector, paving the way for mutually beneficial projects. Some key advantages of PPPs include:

• Cost-sharing: The financial burden is shared between the government and the private sector, reducing the strain on public budgets.

• Efficiency: Private entities bring their technical expertise and efficiency to infrastructure development, ensuring timely completion and quality execution.

• Risk-allocation: Risks are distributed between the public and private partners, ensuring a fair risk-sharing mechanism.

Development Capital

Development capital is loan provided by institutional investors (local or international) that has the features of debt (bond or PPP) but also usually comes with a profit sharing mechanism that allows the investor to participate in the upside from the sale of the assets. 

The upside sharing mechanism formula is usually set in advance and includes a target return (e.g. IRR target …) that the investor achieves before distributions are made to the developer or sponsor. 

Warehouse Facilities: 

A loan facility that allows developers to aggregate multiple (usually smaller) projects, in order to achieve the scale and de-risking required (e.g. assets being built) to re-finance the portfolio with cheaper permanent sources of capital, usually equity and senior debt. 

Mezzanine Debt:

Another form of hybrid debt/equity financing, usually requiring the preexistence of a suitable developer/sponsor balance sheet. The facility usually includes features such as call options, rights, warrants or equity conversion rights.

5. How would you integrate emerging technologies into Super Energy Corporation’s investment strategy for sustainable growth in Vietnam?

In Super Energy, we have considered the integration of emerging technologies as one of the most important factors for our sustainable growth in Vietnam. Technologies help us to boost the efficiency of our wind and solar assets sustainably.

Here are some major emerging technologies that have been integrated and studied in Super Energy:

Remote Operation Control Center OCC:

• In the Smart Grid Roadmap of Vietnam, one of the key strategies is to implement Operation Control Center OCC.
• When an Operation Control Center is implemented and in operation, the associated power plants and substations can be unmanned, which means these power plants and substations are monitored and controlled remotely without on-site operators. We only need operators at the Operation Control Center. Therefore, a significant saving on manpower cost can be achieved for the long term.
• In addition to the manpower cost saving, another great advantage of Operation Control Center is Data Centralization to support data-driven solutions.
• In the coming years, data-driven analytics solutions to analyze the performance and health conditions of wind & solar assets for predictive maintenance will become realistic. This is one of the keys enabling the unmanned operation of power plants. We can optimize our human and equipment resources with data-driven solutions.
• In Super Energy, we have implemented and operated 3 OCC for our solar and wind farms, and more OCCs are coming in our asset portfolio.

Drone Inspection in Solar and Wind Farms:

• We are using drones to support the operation and maintenance in solar farms for visual and thermal inspection of solar panels to detect any anomalies such as panel cracking, soiling, hot-spot, and more.
• Visual and thermal scanning images are the input of a comprehensive analysis model composed of image processing and analytics to detect faulty solar panels. In each of our large-scale solar farms, there are hundreds of thousands of solar panels. It would be extremely challenging to perform inspections manually by our onsite manpower. Therefore, applying drones for inspection in our solar farms is highly effective in supporting our engineers to enhance solar farms’ performance and optimizing our operational costs.
• We are planning to expand the applications of drones to site survey, wind turbine inspection and transmission line inspection.

Data Analytics & Artificial Intelligence:

• Applying data analytics and artificial intelligence to boost the performance of renewable power plants is a noticeably hot and active area. In Super Energy, we do apply these state-of-the-art technologies.
• We are applying data analytics and artificial intelligence for performance assessment, health condition assessment, and production forecasting of our solar and wind farms. We can see how our renewable energy assets are performing and where the energy production losses are going, then we perform timely actions to minimize the losses.
• Data analytics and artificial intelligence can help us to analyze comprehensive operational data to see actionable insights of our asset’s health conditions. From these insights, our team can figure out an optimal predictive maintenance plan to protect our renewable energy assets and enhance its performance in the long term.
• We are also applying data analytics to Material Requirement Planning to optimize the material planning management in our wind and solar power plants. Material Requirement Planning brings a series of benefits to our sustainable growth. For example, reducing inventory levels, reduce component shortages, improving productivity, accurate maintenance scheduling, reducing purchasing costs, etc.