The cost of resilience: a computable general equilibrium analysis of Viet Nam’s dual-track energy strategy under the revised Power Development Plan VIII

Viet Nam's 2025 revision of its Eighth National Power Development Plan (PDP8) is best understood not as a simple acceleration or retreat from decarbonisation, but as a resilience-oriented diversification strategy. The Revised PDP8 expands renewable ambition while retaining substantial dispatchable thermal generation and increasing regional electricity imports. Using GTAP-E-Power with a recalibrated 2024 electricity benchmark and a common 2030 business-as-usual reference, this paper compares the Original and Revised PDP8 across macroeconomic, sectoral, trade and direct territorial and import-attributed emissions outcomes. The results show that the Revised PDP8 carries a measurable resilience premium. Relative to the Original PDP8, it imposes larger economy-wide adjustment costs, increases capital-market pressure, weakens the external balance and shifts activity away from export-oriented manufacturing, especially electronics, textiles and chemicals. Territorial CO₂ falls more under the revised pathway, but direct domestic electricity-sector emissions fall less. Once imports from Lao PDR and China are incorporated, the Revised PDP8 is associated with substantially greater external emissions exposure. Making this resilience premium transparent across economic, industrial and emissions-accounting dimensions, is a necessary step toward aligning Viet Nam's electricity planning with its high-growth development strategy and longer-term decarbonisation commitments.