Vietnam’s Nam Viet Green Energy to finance up to US$300 million US solar and BESS projects

US startup Bitech Technologies Corporation has received a Letter of Intent (LOI) from Vietnam’s Nam Viet Green Energy for solar and battery storage project financing and execution.

NASDAQ-listed Bitech delivers commercial and industrial (C&I) and residential renewable energy and battery storage solutions, focusing on areas including data centres and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.

The company said yesterday (8 May 2023) that the LOI is for the financing of “up to US$300 million” of selected solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, which for Nam Viet Green Energy means expansion into the US – one of the world’s leading solar and storage markets.

Meanwhile, the deal could help the Vietnamese company to bring “many commercially viable and advanced technologies and new battery supplies to the burgeoning Asia region,” Nam Viet CEO Nguyen Tan Hung said.

This would help the company to reduce its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) costs and increase operational efficiencies back home and in the wider Southeast Asia and Asian markets, the CEO said. Vietnam’s solar PV market has grown very rapidly on the back of a C&I feed-in tariff (FiT) policy, leading many including the Asian Development Bank to conclude that energy storage is urgently needed as a priority to support the integration of that solar, while the wider Southeast Asian region has seen significant growth in interest in energy storage resulting from a number of different drivers.

Nam Viet invests and co-invests into renewable energy projects, carries out EPC duties from design and supply of equipment to full construction, as well as operations and maintenance (O&M) for commissioned assets.

Bitech will select projects for the pair to work on. Nam Viet Green Energy would then – subject to its due diligence process and ability to executive definitive agreements with prospective target companies – seek to facilitate capital investment. That could be for equity investments or acquisitions, according to a release.

The US company has a slightly curious backstory. It was only founded in 2021 under a different name reflecting an interest in cryptocurrency mining. Following acquisition by a publicly-listed medical service and tech company called Spine Injury Solutions, the company was renamed Bitech Technologies, got its NASDAQ listing as it subsequently pivoted into clean energy solutions.

Its strategy now is to acquire or license promising technology solutions, in areas including vanadium flow batteries, thin-film solar PV and geothermal energy, as well as acquire or invest in BESS projects. The idea is, according to the company, to then apply its acquired technologies to projects and assets in its portfolio. It still retains an interest in bitcoin mining, too.

Investment from Nam Viet and Nam Viet’s chosen financing partners from Southeast Asia will occur during the 2023 financial year, and could be extended into 2024.

“Bitech’s focus in the United States renewable energy market and their commitment to expanding innovative green energy technologies and products, together with their US local regulatory understanding in the BESS business at the ground level makes them the ideal operating partner to help us forward our mission toward global expansion,” Nam Viet CEO Nguyen Tan Hung said.