Enterprize Energy Initiates 1st Vietnamese Floating LiDAR Survey at 3.4GW Offshore Wind Farm

Low carbon energy developer Enterprize Energy has engaged Fugro, the world’s leading Geo-data specialist, and its Vietnamese partner PTSC to install floating LiDAR survey technology at 3.4 GW Thang Long offshore wind farm, the first such technology used in Vietnam.

Offshore wind in Vietnam has been increasingly recognised as the primary route to decarbonising the country’s energy supply, with its southern waters ranked in the top 10 per cent of global wind locations.

In 2018, Enterprize Energy brought the potential of offshore wind energy off the coast of the Binh Thuan Province to the attention of the Vietnamese government, with a focus on accessing the best resource and identifying opportunities for grid stability solutions such as hydrogen storage.

This announcement for the installation of floating LiDAR marks the next step in the surveying process for Thang Long, the only large-scale offshore wind farm to be granted a survey licence by the Vietnamese government.

Under the partnership, Fugro’s ‘SEAWATCH Wind LiDAR Buoy’ will be deployed to collect detailed wind resource, meteorological, and oceanographic data across the 2000 km2 project site over the next 12 months.

Commenting o the achievement, Ian Hatton, Chairman of Enterprize Energy, said “contracting Fugro and their local partner PTSE to install the first floating LiDAR technology in Vietnam at the Thang Long project site was a natural decision for us. The data the team will collect is central to informing the next stages in Thang Long’s development process, including long-term financial modelling and power purchase agreements.”

Ian further said “the results from our initial marine survey demonstrate that, as we had predicted during our proposal for a survey license, a majority of the seabed throughout the Thang Long Zone is suitable for placing turbines. Now, we can quantify how much energy can be generated throughout the project based on using all of the seabed we initially planned to build on.”

“We are delighted to have taken another step towards harnessing the incredible wind resource off the coast of Binh Thuan, bringing a further 3.4GW of renewables into Vietnam’s energy mix and opening up the opportunity for even more green energy capacity as we explore the potential for energy storage. We have laid the foundation upon which the full potential of the Thang Long zone can be released for the benefit of the Vietnamese people, in line with national planning and policies.”

The first 600MW phase of the 3.4GW Thang Long offshore wind farm is due to come online by the end of 2025, with further phases developed on a rolling basis.