HANOI, July 3 (Reuters) - Vietnam's government said on Wednesday it has issued a new decree to allow factories to directly buy electricity from power suppliers, in a move that could help unleash the country's rich renewable energy potential.
Under the new rules, power consumers can buy electricity directly from renewable power generators via private transmission lines at negotiated prices, the government said in a statement.
The move would allow Vietnam-based manufacturers, such as Germany's Bosch, Denmark's Lego or large Apple's suppliers, to directly buy electricity from producers, effectively ending the monopoly of Vietnam Electricity (EVN), the state-owned distributor.
Consumers can also buy electricity via the national power grid operated by EVN, as long as the sellers have a generation capacity of at least 10 megawatts. (Reporting by Khanh Vu, Phuong Nguyen and Francesco Guarascio Editing by Ed Davies)
