At the International Conference on “Renewable energy (RE) in Vietnam from policy to practice” held by VTV24 and the Energy Association this morning (November 27), experts, business representatives, and electricity associations brought up many problems surrounding the realization of the policy: Privatization of investment in electric power transmission, and Reinforcement of Vietnam’s energy industry.
Development of RE in Vietnam is the primary content throughout the International conference with the topic: “RE in Vietnam: From policy to practice” in Hanoi.
At the 8th meeting, the 14th National Assembly, in the interrogation session of the Minister of Industry and Trade Trần Tuấn Anh, one of the important contents that heated the parliament was the issues about RE projects and the bottlenecks in power capacity release. By the end of June 2019, the whole country had already got 89 wind and solar power plants, with a total installed capacity of 4,543.8 MW, accounting for 8.3% of the total capacity of the national electrical system. This figure, which has reached far beyond the expected number of the revised Power Development Plan (PDP) VII, was only 850 MW of solar power in 2020.
Despite the overgrowth of RE projects, the unability to follow of the transmission system has led to such overloading that many plants had to reduce capacity up to 60%, which has resulted in loss and waste. To meet the fast-growing demand for electricity, the PDP VII (adjusted) has set a very huge plan for grid investment in the coming years. According to this plan, the total capital investment in the power grid is 214 trillion dong in the period from 2016 – 2020, and 610 trillion dong in the period from 2021 – 2030. With this amount of capital investment, it will be hard for EVN to meet the demand financially. Meanwhile, according to current regulations, the state monopolizes power transmission and does not have specific conditions to take advantage of social investment and power transmission system.
“There are quite a lot of power plants, spending money to invest in the transmission system, which is about 20 – 30 km. And after finishing the investment, they want to hand over immediately to EVN but still, it has not been accepted for now.”
Speaking at the Forum, Mr. Nguyễn Đức Toàn – COB of Saigon Gia Dinh Electric JSC put forward the situation: “There are quite a lot of power plants, spending money to invest in the transmission system, which is about 20 – 30 km. After finishing the investment, they want to hand over immediately to EVN but still, it has not been accepted for now.”
Mr. Toàn said that, the private power developers themselves, in the perspectives of the investors, if the State needs the private sector to shoulder the construction of transmission lines to release the capacity of the power plant, then the investors are also ready to join.
“However, some people think that the participation of the private sector in the transmission is against the law. In my opinion, this is a rigid, and unrealistic point of view,” said Mr. Toàn.
COB of Saigon Gia Dinh Electric JSC said, “The investors of the transmission line are not necessarily EVN and the State, but the State only needs to stand out to ensure the technology and quality to for future operation”.
Mr. Nguyễn Tài Anh, Deputy Director of Vietnam Electricity (EVN) said, “EVN’s responsibility is transmission costruction and distribution. The last bottleneck has been caused by planning, solar power and wind power beyond planning.”
“RE has to be dispersed so as to reduce the transmission capacity load; however, recently, we have put too much focus on certain localities, which has caused great pressure on transmission,” said Deputy Director of EVN.
And in reality, Vietnam is still in short of electricity. According to EVN, in 2019, the Group had to mobilize about 2.57 billion KWh of oil-fired electricity at very high costs. By 2020, the mobilized output of oil-powered sources may increase up to 8.6 billion KWh. The amount of electricity in shortage will be around 6.6 billion KWh in 2021, will increase to about 11.8 billion KWh in 2022, and in 2023 the number will be 15 billion KWh. Especially in 2020, there is almost no backup of power sources, so it is possible to face the risk of power shortage in extreme situations, such as higher load demand than forecast, poor water flow to hydroelectric reservoirs, shortages of coal and gas for electricity generation.
These issues are raising big questions that need answers in the development of RE in Vietnam. The international conference with the topic: “RE in Vietnam: From policy to practice” is a forum and an opportunity for the leaders of ministries, branches, localities and enterprises to sit together to look back at the difficulties and bottlenecks, and offer solutions and proposals in the overall picture of Vietnam’s strategy in RE development, as well as listen to the lessons and the recommendations from international friends.
Feedbacks, and policy proposals of localitties, business communities, as well as national and international experts will be compiled by Vietnam Energy Association, together with VTV24 News Center, and then sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade as a specific recommendation, based on which the Ministry can complete the legal framework towards the sustainable development of RE. If there are timely policies for solutions, then the power sources from RE power plants will contribute to supplementing the power source, which helps to reduce the pressure of power shortage in the immediate future, and to ensure energy security and environmental protection.
EHCMC – Compiled and edited
