A third-party investor funds the rooftop solar. Arcus Energy develops, builds, and operates it. You sign a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement at a discount to your EVN manufacturing tariff, and keep the I-RECs for your Scope 2 reporting. As Vietnam's energy market matures and load management becomes the lever, the same Zero Capex structure can fund a solar+BESS package — solar today, storage layered behind the same meter as the integrated answer for managed-load factories.
On 22 April, MOIT extended Vietnam's evening peak to a single continuous 5-hour block from 17:30 to 22:30 Mon–Sat — 66% wider than the old 17:00–20:00 window. The morning peak is abolished; off-peak now runs 00:00–06:00 daily. The VND/kWh rates in Decision 1279/QĐ-BCT are unchanged. The change is the shape of the day, not the price of a kWh.
For a Zero Capex solar PPA on the manufacturing tariff, the economics are near-untouched. Roughly 95% of solar kWh self-consumes against the standard rate during the working day — that band is unchanged. The 10–30% PPA discount applies the same way it did pre-963. What has shifted is the market structure underneath: Vietnam's two-part tariff pilot started 1 July 2026 for the largest manufacturers and is expected to broaden over the following ~12 months. As load management becomes the lever rather than just energy cost, the same Zero Capex structure scales from solar to solar+BESS — capacity-charge management as the additive layer once your site enters the broader tariff regime.
One clean outcome: cheaper electricity, your I-RECs, no new asset to manage.
The PPA tariff sits below what EVN would charge for the same kWh the rooftop solar delivers. The discount range is 10–30% by site location, driven by irradiance — Southern factories sit at the upper end, Northern factories at the lower end.
Your PPA tariff tracks EVN's published tariff with the agreed discount applied. When EVN raises retail tariffs — which they have done at roughly 5% per year since 2020 — your PPA tariff rises proportionally but stays 10–30% below the grid rate. The hedge is the discount, not the absolute price.
International Renewable Energy Certificates issue each year to the offtaker, not the investor. This is the standard Vietnamese rooftop PPA convention. You book the Scope 2 reduction under the GHG Protocol market-based method — roughly 20,000 tCO₂e per year avoided for a 25 MWp rooftop at Vietnam's 2024 grid emission factor of 0.681 tCO₂e/MWh.
Arcus operates, maintains, insures and warranties the system for the full PPA term. Performance risk, weather risk, equipment risk all sit with the investor. You receive the power and the I-RECs and pay the PPA invoice each month. That is the entirety of your operational commitment.
This isn't a split of savings. It's a different product: you're buying discounted electricity and its green attributes from a dedicated rooftop asset — not financing a solar project. The same financing structure scales to solar+BESS: solar cuts the energy charge today; capacity-charge management via storage becomes the additive layer as the two-part tariff pilot broadens beyond the July 2026 launch.
Typical timeline from signed PPA to a commissioned rooftop: 4–6 months. Grid approval is the longest pole.
Arcus reviews your electricity bills, roof structural survey, and load shape. We confirm system size, expected annual yield, and discount band. You receive a term sheet with the PPA tariff and all commercial terms.
The investor — an infrastructure fund, a climate fund manager, or a strategic energy partner — confirms funding. You sign the 25-year PPA. No up-front payment from you.
Arcus develops, procures, installs and commissions the rooftop system. Grid connection approval runs in parallel. The roof is yours throughout — production is not disrupted.
The system generates, you consume, surplus exports per EVN's prevailing rules. You pay the PPA tariff on what the rooftop delivers. I-RECs issue annually to you. Arcus operates the asset for the full 25 years.
Full transparency on a 25-year commitment. Three things matter; everything else is detail the lawyers handle.
The PPA obligates you to take the rooftop's output for 25 years. If you shut the factory down or relocate, there is a pre-agreed buyout schedule. This is the same take-or-pay principle used in every commercial PPA globally and is underwritable by any Vietnamese counsel.
The discount is locked; the absolute price is not. When EVN raises tariffs, your PPA tariff rises with them — always 10–30% below grid. When EVN cuts tariffs (which has not happened in the last decade), the PPA tariff falls too. The hedge is against tariff escalation, which Vietnam has delivered at roughly 5% per year since 2020.
Under standard Vietnamese rooftop PPA structure, I-RECs issue to the offtaker, not the investor. This matters because Apple's Supplier Clean Energy Program, Nike's, H&M's, Uniqlo's, Samsung's and LG's all require the I-REC to sit with the factory to count toward their supply chain Scope 2 target. The PPA language confirms this transfer explicitly.
This is the right model for a specific kind of buyer. Here's how to self-qualify in one minute.
Zero Capex is not the right model if your group has cash on balance sheet earning under 10% and wants to capture the full 10–13% unlevered USD project IRR. For that profile, Self-Invest or Self-Invest + Debt produces materially more value over the 25-year asset life. That choice is detailed on the Self-Invest page.
We develop the same project under both structures. The right choice depends on your cost of capital and your risk appetite — not on which model is objectively better.
A Zero Capex PPA is priced as a discount to the EVN manufacturing retail tariff for your voltage band, locked for 25 years. The discount range in Vietnam today is 10–30% by location, driven by irradiance — Southern factories sit at the upper end, Northern factories at the lower end.
When EVN adjusts retail tariffs, the PPA tariff adjusts in proportion, so the discount is the hedge. This structure has been the Vietnamese market standard since 2018 and is supported by every tier-one infrastructure investor active in Southeast Asian renewables.
A third-party investor owns the system for the 25-year PPA term. Typical investors are infrastructure funds, climate fund managers, or strategic energy partners with Vietnamese renewable-energy mandates.
Arcus Energy originates, develops, builds, and operates the asset on the investor's behalf. At end of term, ownership transfers to the offtaker or the PPA renews, per the contract.
Yes. Under standard Vietnamese rooftop PPA convention, International Renewable Energy Certificates issue each year to the offtaker, not the investor. This is the default structure, not an Arcus-specific feature.
The I-RECs let you book the Scope 2 emissions reduction under the GHG Protocol market-based method — the same claim Apple, Nike, Samsung, LG, H&M and Uniqlo require from their supplier factories. A 25 MWp rooftop generating 30 GWh per year produces approximately 20,000 tCO₂e of avoided emissions annually at Vietnam's 2024 grid emission factor of 0.681 tCO₂e/MWh.
Your PPA tariff rises in proportion. The PPA is priced as a percentage discount to EVN's published tariff, not a fixed VND/kWh price. So when EVN raises tariffs, the PPA tariff rises too, but always stays 10–30% below grid.
EVN has raised manufacturing tariffs at roughly 5% per year since 2020, and EVN's own planning assumes continued 3–5% annual escalation through 2030. Compounded over the 25-year PPA term, the discount on escalating tariffs produces materially more saving than a fixed-price structure would.
The PPA has a pre-agreed buyout schedule. Early termination is not free, but it is contractually defined and underwritten by the counsel on both sides at signing — not a source of surprise.
The buyout value reduces over the PPA term as the investor recovers their capital, so termination in Year 20 costs materially less than termination in Year 5. The schedule is transparent in the PPA and can be reviewed by your counsel before signing.
Yes — and increasingly, solar+BESS is the integrated factory answer rather than a sequential one. For commercial-tariff sites (hotels, retail, third-party data centres) the peak-to-off-peak spread is ~3.1× and BESS arbitrage stands on its own. On the manufacturing tariff the arbitrage spread is narrower (~2.0×), so the lever for factory BESS is load management, not arbitrage — peak-shaving the registered maximum demand (Pmax) once the two-part tariff applies to your site.
Vietnam's two-part tariff pilot started 1 July 2026 for the largest manufacturers (~7,000 sites at ≥22 kV consuming ≥200,000 kWh/month) and is expected to broaden over the following ~12 months as the pilot validates. As that broader rollout reaches your site, BESS converts directly into a VND/kW capacity-charge saving on top of the solar energy-charge saving — the integrated package monetises both layers from a single Zero Capex structure. In the meantime, the same financing structure can fund a solar+BESS package today, with BESS sized to your load profile rather than to a wide spread.
See Solutions: Hotels → for the pure-BESS commercial case, or Solutions: Factories → for the integrated factory thesis.
Typically 4–6 months from signed PPA to commissioned rooftop. The longest pole is grid connection approval, which runs 2–3 months in parallel with construction. Feasibility, term sheet, and financial close are typically 2–3 months combined.
A factory contracting in Q2 2026 commissions in Q4 2026 and receives its first annual I-REC issuance in early 2027. Factories contracting in 2027 or later miss a full calendar year of I-RECs against supplier-audit cycles that are already scheduled.
No obligation, no hard sell. We'll tell you the indicative system size, the discount band your region and roof support, and whether Zero Capex or Self-Invest is the better fit for your balance sheet.