This article provides a comprehensive analysis and an in-depth legal compliance checklist for investors of offshore wind power projects in Vietnam. The analyses are set within the context of the latest updated legal system as of April 2026. The document focuses on power planning, investor selection mechanisms, marine spatial surveying activities, strict financial capacity requirements, electricity pricing mechanisms, and the crucial set of dossiers required to manage schedule and cost risks. The enactment of the 2024 Electricity Law alongside Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 of the National Assembly has established an entirely new legal order. This requires enterprises to prepare a systematic and rigorous compliance roadmap to optimize investment costs and ensure the progress of obtaining licenses from state management agencies.
1. The new legal system governing the offshore wind sector as of April 2026
Offshore wind power is a large-scale industrial sector characterized by the intersection of multiple complex legal layers. The implementation of a project is not only governed by the law on electricity but is also closely related to investment law, the law on marine and island environmental resource management, bidding regulations, electricity pricing mechanisms, as well as the system of commercial power purchase agreements. The event of the 2024 Electricity Law officially taking effect on February 1, 2025, marked an important turning point when, for the first time, offshore wind power was regulated as a separate section in Section 2, Chapter III. Concurrently, Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 of the National Assembly, effective from March 1, 2026, promulgated specific mechanisms for national energy development in the period from 2026 to 2030. In this new legal context, investors must establish strategic priorities to ensure their projects strictly comply with legal regulations.
1.1 Locking the applicable legal scope according to project characteristics
Current laws clearly demarcate management mechanisms based on the project’s expected commercial operation date (COD). Investors must explicitly determine whether their project falls into the group operating in the 2026–2030 period or the 2031–2035 period. Each phase will entail a distinct set of rules regarding the competent state agency for investment policy approval, the procedure for conducting marine spatial surveys, and constraints on electricity price negotiations. Incorrectly identifying the expected operational phase will lead to the consequence of the entire submission dossier being subjected to the wrong legal basis, incorrect approval authority, and inevitably being returned by state management agencies to be redone from scratch. Additionally, investors also need to clarify whether the investment model is to sell all generated electricity to the national power grid or to apply the direct power purchase agreement (DPPA) mechanism in accordance with legal regulations.
1.2 Reviewing consistency with power and marine spatial planning
Alignment with national-level planning is a mandatory prerequisite for all energy projects. Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 clearly defines the concept of an offshore wind power project’s “capacity collection point” as the intended location for the substation gathering power nearshore or onshore according to the power development plan, for the purpose of connecting and transmitting the offshore wind project’s capacity to the national power system. Investors must cross-check the proposed project coordinates against the National Marine Spatial Planning and the National Power Development Planning. Adjustments and updates to the planning are only permitted to perfect the content according to practical requirements but must not change the overarching viewpoints or directional goals, and absolutely must not increase the total installed capacity allocated by power source structure already approved by competent authorities. Any deviation in coordinates or exceeding the allocated total capacity will render the project legally unqualified for further deployment.
1.3 Establishing an in-depth legal compliance map for the project
Due to the overlapping nature of many specialized laws, investors need to build a detailed compliance map for the entire project lifecycle. This map must fully list the necessary permits from central to local levels, the competent state agencies for appraisal and approval, the detailed dossier components required by law, the time limits for resolving administrative procedures, potential legal bottlenecks, and mandatory prerequisites that must be completed before moving to the next step. Digitizing this compliance map into the enterprise’s internal risk management system will help the Board of Directors closely monitor legal progress and prevent administrative violations that could arise from a lack of synchronization between preparation stages.
1.4 Authority to adjust the power supply network development plan
Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 also clearly decentralizes the authority to adjust planning. The Minister of Industry and Trade has the authority to approve adjustments to the national power development planning for specific contents, while the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee has the authority to approve the power supply network development plan within the provincial planning. Therefore, for connection infrastructure works located entirely within the administrative boundaries of a province, the investor must proactively work with the Department of Industry and Trade and the Provincial People’s Committee to ensure that the transmission line route and the capacity collection point substation have been fully integrated into the local planning.
2. Investor selection mechanism and conditions for bypassing bidding
One of the most powerful barrier-removing mechanisms of Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 is the provision allowing the simultaneous approval of the investment policy and the investor for offshore wind power projects selling electricity to the national grid without having to go through land use rights auctions or investor selection bidding. However, this specific mechanism aimed at accelerating progress comes with extremely strict appraisal conditions from the central government.
2.1 Prerequisites for applying the non-bidding mechanism
As detailed in Article 11 of Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15, a project is only considered for allocation to an investor without bidding when it fully meets two core groups of conditions. The first group requires the project to absolutely satisfy conditions regarding national defense, security, national sovereignty, marine and island environmental resource protection, maritime safety assurance, and non-overlapping with oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities. The second group requires the project to be mandatorily listed in the power development planning portfolio and have an expected commercial operation plan in the period from 2025 to 2030. If the proposed dossier lacks any evidence proving compliance with these two groups of conditions, the project will immediately be shifted to standard competitive bidding or entirely rejected from consideration.
2.2 Documentation system proving the organization’s legal status
To avoid the risk of being deemed unqualified by state management agencies and eliminated from the priority selection mechanism, investors must prepare early and perfect the legal proof documentation. Regarding legal status documents, the enterprise must provide a full, valid copy of the enterprise registration certificate, the company’s charter of operations, and a detailed ownership structure chart ensuring transparency regarding the ultimate beneficial shareholders. If the project is implemented in the form of an investor consortium, the dossier must include a consortium agreement clearly stipulating the capital contribution ratio of each member, specifically dividing the responsibilities and authority of each party, and clearly designating the legal entity status of the consortium’s leading member as the sole representative before state agencies.
2.3 Dossier proving the technical plan and power evacuation
The application dossier for the investment policy approval of an offshore wind power project must include contents required by investment laws and a pre-feasibility study report as prescribed by construction laws. The pre-feasibility study report must clarify the project’s overall technical plan, including the expected installed capacity scale, the spatial layout diagram of wind turbines at sea, the design plan for the submarine cable route, and the technical plan for connecting to the national power grid. Crucially, the investor must attach detailed explanatory documents on the power evacuation plan to prove that when the wind power plant operates at maximum capacity, it will not cause bottlenecks or overloading for the existing regional transmission grid system.
2.4 Compliance evidence package and inter-agency coordination process
To increase the success rate when submitting the dossier, investors should establish a comprehensive compliance evidence package. This document package includes not only technical reports prepared by the enterprise but must also contain preliminary written opinions from specialized agencies confirming that the project does not violate prohibited areas. The investment registration agency will seek appraisal opinions from the Ministry of National Defense regarding the survivability of military works, from the Ministry of Public Security regarding economic security, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding maritime boundary delimitation, and from the Ministry of Transport regarding aviation clearance as well as maritime shipping routes. Proactively collecting this empirical data into the compliance evidence package will help investors significantly reduce the waiting time for feedback from coordinating appraisal agencies.
3. Investment roadmap under two phased periods from 2026 to 2035
The biggest difference in the current administrative management mechanism for the offshore wind power sector lies in the clear demarcation of authority and implementation procedures based on the project’s expected commercial operation date. This is a key legal risk point that corporate leadership must pay special attention to in order to design a suitable internal critical path schedule, avoiding deviations from the legal framework stipulated in Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15.
3.1 Phase of projects expected to operate from 2025 to 2030
For offshore wind power projects included in the planning and expected to operate from now until 2030, the authority to simultaneously approve the investment policy and the investor belongs to the Prime Minister. Due to the urgent nature of ensuring short-term national energy security, the process for this phase requires strict control at the central level. The marine area survey dossier is not entirely separated into a prolonged independent procedure but is often reviewed concurrently or submitted alongside the application dossier for investment policy approval. State management agencies will urgently review defense and maritime sovereignty factors to submit to the Prime Minister for a decision. However, investors must accept a strict commercial constraint: the negotiated electricity price for the investor’s offshore wind project will not be allowed to exceed the maximum price of the offshore wind power generation price framework in the year the negotiation is conducted.
3.2 Phase of projects expected to operate from 2031 to 2035
Entering the long-term development orientation phase from 2031 to 2035, the state management policy heavily decentralizes power to provincial-level local governments. According to Article 12 of Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15, the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee where the project’s capacity collection point is located within their managed administrative boundary will be the competent authority to approve the investment policy for the offshore wind power project. The capacity collection point is determined according to the power development plan, or in cases where it is not yet specifically determined, it will be based on the proposal of the Provincial People’s Committee and must be concurred with in writing by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
3.3 Mandatory inter-agency consultation process for local governments
Although approval authority is decentralized to localities for projects operating after 2030, the inter-agency control mechanism is still maintained at a very strict level. The investment policy approval by the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee strictly requires the written consensus of seven central ministries and branches, including the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Construction, and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The provincial-level investment registration agency is responsible for presiding over the dispatch of dossiers and gathering opinions from these agencies during the dossier processing period. This means that the investor must prepare a multi-dimensional explanatory dossier, simultaneously meeting the specialized technical standards of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the environmental safety standards of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as the absolute security requirements from the Ministry of National Defense.
3.4 Managing the risk of non-refundable survey costs
In the period from 2031 to 2035, marine spatial surveying activities must strictly be carried out independently and completed before the investor can submit the official application for investment policy approval. Notably, from a financial perspective, all surveying and dossier preparation costs are self-accounted by the investor using the enterprise’s own capital. In the event that no investor wins the bid for the project or the project is proven commercially and technically infeasible after the survey results are available, these costs will be accounted for as production and business expenses of the enterprise and will absolutely not be refunded by the state in any form. This regulation forces enterprises to establish extremely tight survey budget control mechanisms to avoid wasting capital unnecessarily.
4. Detailed list of offshore wind power investment preparation dossiers
To ensure the validity of the submitted dossier and shorten the appraisal time by competent state management agencies, investors need to standardize the dossier according to the four core criteria groups below. Missing any document in this list carries the risk of disrupting the project’s entire legal progress.
4.1 Proving the legal validity of the planning and the necessity of the project
Investors need to prepare a detailed explanatory statement on the project’s alignment with the national energy planning. This statement must attach official map extracts from the National Power Development Planning and relevant planning implementation plan approval decisions. The explanation should focus on analyzing and proving that the project strictly adheres to the planning adjustment principles, matches the actual load growth demand of the economic region, does not alter the nation’s core energy security goals, and especially does not exceed the total installed capacity quota allocated by the Government for each region. Sharp arguments regarding the project’s contribution to greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments and ensuring stable power supply security will increase the dossier’s persuasiveness.
4.2 Establishing project location coordinates and designing marine area boundaries
The dossier must provide digitized maps clearly showing the corner coordinates of the project according to the VN2000 National Reference and Coordinate System. The project description must clearly define the boundary of the area expected to deploy wind turbines, maritime safety corridors, aerodynamic wake effect zones between turbines, and a detailed diagram of the planned submarine cable route connecting to the shore. Parallel to the technical maps, the investor must submit a preliminary review report on marine spatial constraints. This report must provide evidence showing that the project location does not violate core military defense zones, is not located within officially announced international or domestic maritime shipping routes, does not infringe on sensitive marine ecological conservation areas, and does not conflict with existing oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities.
4.3 Designing connection infrastructure and power evacuation technology solutions
The biggest bottleneck for large-scale renewable energy projects is the absorption capacity of the regional transmission grid. Therefore, the technical dossier must accurately describe the connection point plan and the construction location of the onshore capacity collection point. The investor must coordinate with an independent consulting unit to conduct power flow simulation calculations and evaluate the stability of the national power system when receiving thousands of megawatts of offshore wind power injected into the network under various weather conditions. The report must present safe operational scenarios and automated dispatch coordination plans with the National Load Dispatch Center. The plan to establish a transparent electricity metering system and the electrical technical standards applied to the substation as well as the underground transmission lines must be presented in detail.
4.4 Establishing the commercial operation roadmap and milestone management plan
The investor needs to create an overall master schedule for the entire project using the critical path method (CPM) to identify priority tasks that cannot be delayed. This plan must be divided into specific timelines for each phase, including the period for applying for survey licenses, conducting wind measurements and marine geological surveys, the time of submitting the application for investment policy approval, the PPA negotiation period, the schedule for arranging international financing, the offshore construction and installation phase, and finally the expected commercial operation date (COD). Accompanying the schedule is a schedule risk identification matrix, which provides practical backup scenarios in case extreme weather conditions hinder construction at sea or delays occur during the land clearance process for onshore grid infrastructure.
5. Legal regulations and procedures for marine spatial surveying
Offshore wind power surveying is a phase that consumes massive financial resources and harbors the most technical risks. Legal regulations clearly demarcate the procedure for allocating marine areas for surveying for state-owned enterprises versus private enterprises.
5.1 Allocating survey marine areas to 100% state-owned enterprises
For projects that have not yet received investment policy approval or do not have a valid survey dossier submitted by any unit, the competent authority may prioritize allocating the marine area to enterprises with 100% state-held charter capital to conduct potential assessment surveys. This procedural sequence is regulated in extreme detail in Circular No. 79/2025 issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, effective from February 15, 2026. The state-owned enterprise’s application dossier for survey allocation includes an application form, documents proving the source of charter capital, and a detailed explanatory report. The explanatory report must clearly state the location, scope, and area of the proposed marine area, accompanied by a map and a list of corner coordinates in the VN2000 national coordinate system. Notably, the report must clearly present the survey methodology, the estimated number of physical samples to be collected, measurement frequency, applied technology, and the allocated funding to carry it out. The dossier appraisal process is chaired by the Vietnam Administration of Seas and Islands. The Administration will seek inter-agency opinions from the Ministries of National Defense, Public Security, Foreign Affairs, Industry and Trade, and local governments within seven working days. If approved, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development will sign a decision document assigning the enterprise to conduct the survey with strict limitations on time and data confidentiality obligations.
5.2 Legal framework for allocating marine areas to private investors
For private investors, applying for the allocation of marine areas for surveying is governed by the system of the Government’s Decree No. 44/2026. Under this latest regulation, all scientific research, measurement, and exploration activities serving offshore wind project development strictly require carrying out the procedure to apply for marine area allocation. The maximum term for allocating marine areas for survey purposes is stipulated not to exceed three years, and this allocation decision is not permitted to be amended, supplemented, or extended in time under any circumstances. Approval authority is clearly decentralized: the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has the authority to decide on marine areas located outside the provincial marine administrative boundaries and inter-regional marine areas, while the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee decides on marine areas located entirely within the locality’s management boundaries.
5.3 Financial obligations and marine area usage fee rates in 2026
A legal factor that directly constitutes the project’s financial model is the marine area usage fee rate. Circular No. 18/2026 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development details this fee rate based on a principle of decreasing from the shore outwards to encourage projects to be pushed further offshore to protect coastal landscapes and navigation channels. Offshore wind power falls under use purpose group number six regarding clean energy, with prices ranging from three million VND to seven million five hundred thousand VND per hectare per year. Specifically, the marine area usage fee rate based on geographical distance applicable to 2026 is clearly stipulated. For areas from 6 nautical miles to 9 nautical miles, the rate is 7,000,000 VND/hectare/year. The area from 9 to 12 nautical miles has a rate of 5,500,000 VND/hectare/year. The area from 12 to 15 nautical miles applies a rate of 4,500,000 VND/hectare/year. Finally, areas beyond 15 nautical miles have the lowest rate of 3,000,000 VND/hectare/year. In cases where the scope of the permitted marine area allocated to the project spans across multiple sea zones with different fee rates, the marine area usage fee will be calculated in detail by summing up each respective area portion belonging to the corresponding sea zones.
5.4 Defining the scope of field surveys and managing contractor contracts
The survey technical design dossier must clarify deep specialized items including multibeam seabed topographic surveys, shallow and deep geological structures via core drilling, as well as sub-bottom geophysical elements. Collecting continuous data on wind regimes, wave characteristics, surface currents, and the frequency of major storms is a mandatory technical requirement to calculate the fatigue life of turbine foundation structures over a 25-year lifecycle. Additionally, the survey must also cover the entire length of the power transmission submarine cable route and the landfall point area. During internal management, the investor must accurately plan the readiness timing of specialized vessels, satellite positioning equipment, and the team of oceanographic experts. Maximizing the use of favorable weather windows at sea is a vital factor to avoid situations where survey vessels have to anchor and wait for the weather while the enterprise still has to pay daily charter standby fees. To control legal and commercial risks, the contract signed with the survey contractor needs to very clearly define the deliverables, including the initial raw dataset, standardized processed data, and the final geological interpretation report. The contract also needs to design an evaluation mechanism based on progress milestones, allowing the project owner the right to unilaterally terminate the project early if initial measurement results show that the marine area has too weak a geological foundation or lacks wind potential meeting commercial standards. Clauses regarding maritime risk compensation insurance, liability limits in the event of collisions, and especially absolute intellectual property ownership rights over all survey data must be strictly stipulated to serve subsequent feasibility study report preparation steps.
6. Strict requirements on investors’ financial capacity and practical experience
Offshore wind power does not belong to the investment segment for small-scale enterprises or those lacking experience in managing infrastructure mega-projects. To avoid speculative registration that reserves space at sea and wastes national resources, legal regulations are designed to establish extremely high technical and financial barriers regarding the core capacity of investors.
6.1 Requirements for minimum charter capital and equity ratio
According to current specialized legal regulations applied to review dossiers, investors wishing to participate in preparing dossiers and developing offshore wind power projects must prove superior financial capacity. A mandatory condition is that an independent enterprise proposing to survey and invest must have a minimum registered charter capital of 5,000 billion VND. If investors establish a consortium to jointly execute the project, this prescribed charter capital level will be calculated by aggregating the total charter capital of all member enterprises participating in the consortium. Besides charter capital requirements, the funding structure for the project is also strictly controlled by functional agencies. Typically, investment management agencies require the ratio of actual contributed equity directly participating in the project to be no lower than 20% of the total estimated investment capital. To transparently prove this financial capacity, investors must prepare a dossier including financial statements for the last three years audited by reputable international or domestic independent auditing organizations, bank account balance confirmation letters proving ready-to-disburse cash amounts, capital contribution commitment minutes from founding shareholders, and conditional credit financing interest letters from financial institutions for the commercial loan portion.
6.2 Evidence of experience in managing and implementing mega-energy projects
Parallel to strong financial capacity, practical experience is the deciding factor for state management agencies to assess the reliability and ability of the investor to realize the project. According to regulations applied in 2026, enterprises registering to implement projects must provide documentary evidence showing they have successfully directly invested in or contributed capital to develop at least one energy project with a total investment capital scale of no less than 10,000 billion VND. This reference project must be one that has completed construction, been commissioned, and put into continuous commercial operation within the last five years. Projects located either within Vietnam’s territory or in other countries worldwide are acceptable. In the event they cannot meet the 10,000 billion VND project scale requirement, investors are strictly required to provide evidence proving the enterprise’s capability profile has directly participated in the executive management or construction and installation of offshore wind power projects of equivalent capacity scale in international markets.
6.3 Legal risk management in the structure of joint venture investment agreements
Because the investment capital scale reaches billions of dollars and entails massive marine construction technical requirements, forming investment consortia between domestic enterprises knowledgeable about procedures and international corporations holding technology is currently the most popular model. However, investors need to thoroughly review the consortium agreement structure to avoid legal deadlocks during project management decision-making processes. The consortium agreement must clarify in writing the legal responsibilities of each party in handling environmental impact compensation issues, the method for allocating initial survey costs, and obligations to inject capital according to the disbursement schedule. Especially, the consortium must establish strict internal information confidentiality regulations related to wind measurement data and seabed models, while standardizing core commitments in advance to ensure the unity of the entire consortium when entering electricity price negotiations with state agencies.
6.4 Establishing a virtual corporate legal data center (VDR)
To serve complex inter-agency appraisals that require the continuous provision of information, investors should establish a secure electronic data center. The structure of this data center needs to be scientifically divided into folders such as legal entity records, audited financial reports, documents proving technical capacity, reference contracts of completed energy projects, electrical connection planning drawings, marine environmental impact assessment reports, and draft contract templates. Preparing this data center in advance helps the enterprise immediately respond to any supplementary explanation requests from the National Appraisal Council or the Provincial People’s Committee, thereby significantly shortening the waiting time for administrative procedures.
7. Power generation price framework and commercial negotiation strategy for power purchase agreements (PPA)
The factor deciding the financial viability of an offshore wind power project lies in the final electricity selling price and the ability to ensure stable cash flows. Vietnam’s current policy direction has shifted from a fixed feed-in tariff (FIT) mechanism to a direct price negotiation mechanism between the investor and the power purchaser; however, this negotiation process is strictly controlled by a ceiling price issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
7.1 Legal basis and methodology for determining the power generation price framework
In 2026, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued Circular No. 09/2025/TT-BCT detailing the dossier, sequence, procedures, and methodology for determining as well as the approval process of the power generation price framework applicable to energy projects. The establishment of the reference electricity price is built upon a highly rigorous system of basic financial parameters that reflect actual capital costs in the market. According to the report calculating the power generation price framework for 2026, the standard input parameters to build the pricing model include an assumed capital structure ratio of 30% equity and 70% commercial loan financing. This financial model is also calculated based on an expected foreign currency borrowing interest rate of 7.76% per year and a domestic currency borrowing interest rate of 8.47% per year, with the weight of foreign currency versus domestic currency loans allocated at 80% and 20%, respectively. The corporate income tax applied in the pricing calculation model is averaged at 8.25% throughout the project lifecycle, combined with the investor’s expected pre-tax internal rate of return fixedly capped at 12%.
7.2 Offshore wind power price framework limits applicable to 2026
Pursuant to Clause 4, Article 11 of Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15, the electricity price of an offshore wind power project negotiated and agreed upon by the investor and the power purchaser is absolutely not permitted to be higher than the maximum price of the offshore wind power generation price framework issued by the state agency in the year the contract negotiation takes place. The calculation results for the 2026 power generation price framework show that offshore wind power is the energy type with the highest initial capital investment cost and generation price in the renewable energy source system. The ceiling price fluctuates greatly depending on the volatility of global equipment investment rates, expected electricity output, and the meteorological structural characteristics of each sea region. According to calculation reports, the power generation price framework for offshore wind power in 2026 ranges from a minimum of 3,110 VND/kWh to a maximum of 4,585 VND/kWh. In the Northern maritime region, due to complex construction conditions, unpredictable seabeds, and specific meteorological factors, the proposed ceiling price is recorded near the upper limit to compensate for risk costs and attract investors to develop essential energy supplies for this region.
7.3 Price negotiation dossier and internal financial model explanation
For the power purchase agreement negotiation process to proceed smoothly, investors must prepare an extremely detailed financial model with high logic and complete data transparency. This financial model must clearly break down the total initial capital investment costs including costs for turbine procurement, foundation construction, submarine cable laying, expected annual operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, bank loan interest payment costs, and contingency cost allowances for construction material price fluctuations. Additionally, investors need to create various scenarios for electricity output injected into the grid based on a series of actual wind measurement data for a minimum of 12 continuous months at the project site. Proposed price adjustment mechanisms related to foreign exchange rate fluctuation risks or O&M cost inflation must also be sharply argued and accompanied by analytical documents proving that macroeconomic assumptions have a solid scientific basis. Thoroughly preparing the negotiation dossier right from the pre-feasibility study phase will help investors avoid falling into a passive position when competent authorities request cost reviews and demand reductions in investment rates.
7.4 Direct Power Purchase Agreement (DPPA) mechanism for industrial customers
Another important commercial mechanism established by Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 is the regulation on direct power purchasing activities. This mechanism contributes to forming a competitive electricity market and bringing transparency to transactions. Accordingly, the electricity price in direct power purchase agreements through dedicated private grid connections or the national grid will be freely negotiated and agreed upon by the power seller and the power purchaser based on market principles without being imposed by a fixed ceiling price framework. Expanding the subjects participating in direct power purchasing to include retail electricity units in economic zones, industrial parks, high-tech parks, and other specialized functional zones creates a flexible output consumption channel and optimizes revenue for offshore wind power investors.
8. Legal risk management and comprehensive compliance solutions
The process of developing an offshore wind power project from the first survey step to commercial power generation usually spans 7 to 10 years and faces countless risks regarding policy changes as well as administrative procedural barriers. Below is an analysis of the most common legal bottlenecks, their corresponding commercial consequences, and proactive control measures that the investor’s leadership needs to strictly apply.
8.1 Confusion about the regulatory legal framework between the two operating phases
The first and most dangerous bottleneck is confusing the regulatory legal framework between the operating phase from 2026 to 2030 and the phase from 2031 to 2035. The common commercial and schedule consequence is that the licensing dossier is submitted to the wrong approval authority. This causes management agencies to demand a complete restart, prolonging the appraisal time, thereby leading to missing out on short-term preferential electricity price mechanisms. The proactive control and prevention measure is to build a legal decision tree based on the actual project operation milestone, while cross-checking regulations in the 2024 Electricity Law and Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15 before submitting the dossier.
8.2 Lack of control over item scope and marine spatial survey data quality
The direct consequence of this risk is the survey execution budget ballooning by millions of US dollars. Subsequently, the measurement data may be rejected by management agencies for use in basic design, giving rise to prolonged contract disputes with the marine surveying unit. To prevent this risk, investors need to legally bind the survey contract with international measurement acceptance standards. Enterprises must also clearly stipulate copyright ownership over the data and apply a payment mechanism based on actual deliverable milestones.
8.3 Financial capacity and project implementation experience profiles lacking consistency and transparency
If falling into the risk of a non-transparent dossier, the project will immediately be assessed by the Appraisal Council as failing to meet the minimum capacity condition of 5,000 billion VND or lacking mega-project experience. This situation gives rise to multi-round supplementary explanation requests, causing massive losses in time. An effective control measure is to establish a secure electronic data center, standardize the consortium’s capacity profile summary, and digitize all financial proof documents that have been audited by independent international audit firms.
8.4 Infeasible transmission grid connection and plant capacity evacuation plans
The most frequent consequence is that the planning dossier is rejected by specialized agencies because the regional grid is already fully loaded. In that case, the project is forced to reduce its capacity scale or delay its commercial operation date to wait for new transmission lines to be completed. A proactive measure for enterprises is to hire an independent consulting organization to assess the power evacuation capacity of the national grid. Simultaneously, investors need to pre-develop dispatch coordination scenarios and calculate investment plans for self-use substation systems.
8.5 Financial model for electricity price negotiation lacking practical market basis and exceeding the ceiling framework
Subjectivity in preparing the financial model causes the PPA negotiation process to fall into a prolonged deadlock. The biggest risk is that the project cannot finalize the electricity selling price, leading commercial banks to refuse credit loan disbursements. To overcome this, investors need to digitize the financial model with cash flow stress-test scenarios, strictly benchmark against the maximum price framework issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and prepare in advance a documentation package to defend input cost assumptions.
9. Orientation for deploying in-depth legal and technical consulting service packages
Recognizing the extreme complexity of the offshore wind power project development process, multinational-scale professional investors rarely handle the entire intertwined volume of legal and technical work themselves. Instead, strategic cooperation with energy consulting organizations, reputable law firms, and marine technical consulting firms is an optimal risk management method that yields the highest efficiency. A standard practical consulting roadmap for enterprises is usually divided into four main in-depth work layers, which can be deployed in parallel depending on the project’s schedule pressure.
9.1 Reviewing the master plan and planning a legal compliance strategy
The first foundational layer of work is reviewing the master plan and planning the compliance strategy. The consulting expert team will conduct a detailed assessment of the coordinates of the marine area intended for project deployment, cross-checking with the National Marine Spatial Planning and the National Power Development Planning to accurately determine the expected operating phase. Based on this information, experts will accurately identify the highest competent state management agency for approval and map out the shortest legal critical path to help the project reach the Final Investment Decision (FID) milestone safely.
9.2 Designing the administrative procedure roadmap and digitizing the approval submission dossier
The second layer of work focuses on designing the inter-agency administrative procedure roadmap and digitizing the approval submission dossier. Legal experts will standardize the document checklist required for each phase, construct an accountability matrix among central ministries and branches participating in the appraisal, and issue warnings about statutory deadlines for each licensing step. Organizing the dossier scientifically from day one not only creates a professional impression with the receiving agency but also prevents the risk of losing important documents during the dossier circulation process among departments and sectors.
9.3 Creating a joint venture ownership structure and leveraging specific approval mechanisms
The third layer of work dives deep into creating the internal investment ownership structure and taking advantage of specific investor selection mechanisms. At this step, the legal advisory team will review national defense and security criteria and assess military zone overlap risks to advise on the possibility of applying the investor approval mechanism without bidding/auctions according to Resolution No. 253/2025/QH15. At the same time, financial experts will support designing a suitable investor consortium structure to meet the minimum charter capital requirement of 5,000 billion VND and fairly allocate financial risks between domestic partners and international technology corporations.
9.4 Drafting and standardizing the key commercial contract system
The final layer of work, which is also the crucial step deciding the commercial success or failure of the project, is drafting and standardizing key commercial contracts. The team of international commercial lawyers and specialized energy engineers will coordinate to draft the geological survey vessel charter contract, the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) general contractor agreement for offshore works, and the long-term Operation and Maintenance (O&M) service provision agreement. Most importantly, the consulting team will provide comprehensive support during the power purchase agreement (PPA) negotiation process with Vietnam Electricity (EVN), ensuring the negotiated price mechanism complies with the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s price framework and that financial risk allocation clauses due to force majeure or changes in law are maximally protected according to international practices.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace professional legal advice. For support tailored to your situation, please contact a lawyer or legal professional of HMLF.
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