Energy for future sustainable economic development is considered one crucial issue in Vietnam. This article aims to investigate green scenarios for power generation in Vietnam by 2030. Four scenarios named as business as usual (BAU), low green (LG), high green (HG) and crisis have been proposed for power generation in Vietnam with projection to 2030. Three key factors have been selected for these scenarios, namely: (1) future fuel prices, (2) reduction of load demand caused by the penetration of LED technology and rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems, and (3) the introduction of power generation from renewable sources. The least costly structure of power generation system has been found. CO2 emission reduction of HG in comparison to the BAU scenario and its effect on generation cost reduction are computed. Results show that BAU is the worst scenario in terms of CO2 emissions because of the higher proportion of power generation from coal and fossil fuels. LG and HG scenarios show their positive impacts both on CO2 emissions and cost reduction. HG is defined as the greenest scenario by its maximum potential on CO2 emission reduction (~146.92Mt CO2) in 2030. Additionally, selling mitigated CO2can make green scenarios more competitive to BAU and Crisis in terms of cost. Two ranges of generation cost (4.3-5.5 and 6.0-7.7US$cent/kWh) have been calculated and released in correspondence with low and high fuel price scenarios in the future. Using LED lamps and increasing the installed capacity of rooftop PVs may help reduce electric load demand. Along with the high contribution of renewable sources will make the HG scenario become more attractive both in environmental and economic aspects when the Crisis scenario comes. Generation costs of all scenarios shall become cheap enough for promoting economic development in Vietnam by 2030.

The first but very significant step in electricity system planning is to make an accurate long-term forecast on electricity consumption. This article aims to forecast the consumption for the Vietnam electricity system (GWH) up to 2030. An econometric model with the Cobb Douglas production function is used. The five variables proposed in the forecasting function are GDP, income, population, proportion of industry and service in GDP, and number of households. The forecasting equation is tested in terms of stationary and co-integration to choose meaningful variables and to eliminate the minor ones which account for none or small impacts on the forecast. The results show that: (1) the qualified forecasting equation only includes 3 major variables: the per capita income, the population, and the number of households, (2) with the medium income scenario, the forecasting consumptions in 2020, 2025, 2030 are 230,195 GWH, 349,949 GWH, 511,268 GWH respectively. (3) The GDP and the proportion of industry and service in GDP do not make major impacts on this forecasting in Vietnam. The method and the result of this article are likely a typical example of forecasting electricity consumption in developing countries which have a transforming economy similar to that in Vietnam.

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 remains public health burdens and many unresolved issues worldwide. Molecular assays based on real-time RT-PCR are critical for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical specimens from patients suspected of COVID-19. Objective:We aimed to establish and validate an in-house real-time RT-PCR for the detection of SARS-CoV-2.Methodology: Primers and probes sets in our in-house real-time RT-PCR assay were designed in conserved regions of the N and E target genes. Optimized multiplex realtime RT-PCR assay was validated using the first WHO International Standard (NIBSC code: 20/146) and evaluated clinical performance. Results:The limit of detection validated using the first WHO International Standard was 159 IU/ml for both E and N target genes. The evaluation of clinical performance on 170 clinical samples showed a positive percent agreement of 100% and the negative percent agreement of 99.08% for both target genes. The Kappa value of 0.99 was an excellent agreement, the strong correlation of C t values observed between two tests with r 2 = 0.84 for the E gene and 0.87 for the N gene. Notably, we assessed on 60 paired saliva and nasopharyngeal samples. The overall agreement was 91.66%, and Kappa value of 0.74 showed a high agreement between two types of samples. When using nasopharyngeal swabs as the reference standard, positive percent agreement, and negative percent agreement were 91.83% and 90.90%, respectively. Conclusion:In the present study, we established and validated an in-house real-time RT-PCR for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 in a resource-limited country.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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