Heat wave may lead to more power cuts

A prolonged heat wave has led to electricity overloads and several power cuts in the northern and central regions over the past few days, despite Electricity of Viet Nam’s previous commitment to providing sufficient power supplies.

In the case of continued heat waves and droughts over the next few days, the likelihood of power cuts would be substantial, said EVN Management Board chairman Dao Van Hung,

EVN confirmed that many electricity stations had been overloaded, like those in Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Thai Binh provinces. The prolonged heat wave had caused several lakes to drop to alarming levels.

The dry weather had also caused hydroelectrical reservoirs in the central and southern regions, like Ialy, Ham Thuan and Tri An, to reach alarmingly low levels.

The low water levels in the north’s Hoa Binh, Tuyen Quang and Thac Ba reservoirs had significantly reduced the capacities of these hydroelectricity plants.

The destructive heat had also caused several breakdowns in the electricity network and in power plants, such as the breakdown in the 500 kV north-south electricity system’s sections from Pleiku – Di Linh, Pleiku – Da Nang and Da Nang – Ha Tinh yesterday morning. The breakdown, which had been fixed by the afternoon, had caused power cuts of 7,000 MW and 2,000 MW in the central and northern regions, respectively.

During the past few days, the average electricity supply had reached 308.56 million kWh a day, an increase of more than 24 per cent over the first few days of July. The northern region had seen increases of almost 33 per cent.

While EVN had not planned any blackouts, power cuts had happened anyway due to network breakdowns and overloads, said Hung.

He said that the heat itself had weakened the network’s operational capacity.

In the capital, several power cuts had taken place due to supply overloads. EVN Ha Noi reported a 9 million kWh increase in power usage on Wednesday, reaching 40 million kWh. This recorded a year-on-year increase of 68 per cent. The peak hour of power demand was 3pm, which totalled 1,922 MW. Also on Wednesday, a breakdown happened to Transformer Station 4C in the Nam Dong area, in Dong Da District. EVN Ha Noi had warned citizens on the limited usage of electrical appliances such as air conditioners and electric kettles.

The EVN official said that these overloads were extreme and unexpected and could only be fixed by investing in a new backup system, which could cost as much as US$8 billion. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam electricity, Vietnam energy, Vietnam power shortage