Power shortages loom for the south

Southern Vietnam, home to commercial hubs like HCM City and manufacturing clusters such as Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces, may face more power shortages next year.

Many power projects which do not belong to Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) are behind schedule, according to EVN.

An official from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, who declined to be named, said that EVN would develop only 21 power projects with total power capacity of 14,610MW in the 2016-30 period. 

In addition, EVN will supply only 6.6% of the region’s power demand in the 2021-2025 period and 13% in the 2025-2030 period.

The rest would be provided by other power businesses, he said. But most of the power projects developed by other businesses are behind schedule.

For example, the companies have only completed 67.5% of their assigned work in the 2011-15 period, which was one of the main causes of power shortages in the region in the period, according to EVN.

Due to an annual power shortage of between 10% and 15% of the region’s total demand, the region needs to receive power from the northern and central regions with a total capacity of 2,000MW every year.

Experts said this resulted in a considerable loss of power in Vietnam due to the long distance of power transfer.

Because the southern region has no power reserve, EVN at times has to use diesel to generate power, which is double the cost of coal-fired thermal power.

As a result, EVN lost hundreds of billions of dong in the first half of the year.