VietNamNet Bridge – The precocious summer this year with the sun turning up
right in early March has led to the higher than expected electricity
consumption. This, plus the drought attacks in many localities both have put a
hard pressure on the electricity supply in the 2013 dry season.
According to the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), the group estimated that about
355 million kwh of electricity would be consumed a day in March. However, 365
million kwh is being consumed a day in recent days. The only electricity
supplier has warned that the electricity consumption would increase rapidly, if
the summer comes precociously and it gets hotter which would lead to the higher
demand from households.
Meanwhile, the demand for electricity is also believed to increase rapidly from
production factories. A meeting was gathered late last week to discuss the
measures to support the agriculture production in the central region and Central
Highlands in the context of the serious drought.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has requested relevant ministries to draw
up the plans to reasonably use the water from hydropower plants’ reservoirs to
water the agriculture fields. Especially, the top priority task is to ensure
enough water for the winter-spring crop in the region, which means that
hydropower plants may have to “sacrifice” their water to rescue the rice crops.
Under the latest decision by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the maximum
capacity of the power plants nationwide in 2013 would be 20,585 MW, while the
total output to be provided by domestic power plants and foreign sources may
reach 133.44 billion kwh, up by 11 percent over 2012.
Especially, the ministry has estimated that Vietnam would have to mobilize 1.57
billion kwh from oil-run power plants, which means the power sources which have
the production costs higher than that of hydropower plants.
In 2012, Vietnam planned to use 0.506 billion kwh of electricity from oil-run
power plants, including 0.271 billion kwh from FO run plants and 0.235 billion
kwh from DO oil plants (only in the rainy season).
However, in fact, the electricity volume from oil run sources was 0.159 billion
kwh only, according to Dau tu.
As such, the electricity volume to be mobilized from oil run power sources in
2013 would be by far higher than that in 2012. MOIT has anticipated the shortage
of electricity from hydropower sources, thus planning to use more electricity
from other more costly sources.
The production cost at oil run power plants remains very high, at VND4,000-5,000
per kwh. Therefore, EVN has been requested to minimize the volume of electricity
from the sources.
MOIT and EVN had a meeting with the government office two days ago about the
electricity supply in the dry season of 2013. EVN warned that southern provinces
would lack 9.178 billion kwn in 2013, including 2.305 billion kwn in the dry
season.
EVN has announced the plan to buy 3.6 billion kwh of electricity from Chinese
sources in 2013, according to Dan Viet
It is estimated that the total electricity output would be 113 billion kwh, of
which 64 kwh would be churned out in the dry season. The biggest worry for
hydropower plants now is the lack of water. A report showed that hydropower
plants’ reservoirs now lack 5.297 billion cubic meters of water, or 1.43 billion
kwh of electricity.
EVN has promised to urge the investors to speed up the construction of new power
plants, including the Quang Ninh thermopower plant No 3, Sekaman hydropower
plant 3 so as to satisfy the additional charge in the peak season.
Ngoc Dung