Nghi Son Power centre seen reducing power shortage

The 600- MW Nghi Son Coal Fired Thermal Power Plant worth $1.2 billion, which got off the ground in the northern province of Thanh Hoa last week, will help lessen the nation’s heavy dependence on hydropower.

Power supply in Vietnam, especially the north, is greatly affected by hydrometeorology conditions. Electricity shortages are extremely severe in the dry season when water levels in most of the hydropower reservoirs fall as witnessed in recent months.

The operation of Nghi Son Power Plant as the base power source would effectively reduce the over-reliance on the hydropower plants which now contributes 35 percent of the country’s power output.

The Nghi Son station, the first among the two to be developed in the Nghi Son Power Centre, is being built by Marubeni Corporation of Japan under the supervision of the Consortium of Electric Power Development Co of Japan and Colenco Power Engineering of Switzerland.

Marubeni was awarded the $1 billion contract in early June to develop the plant, which would be operational in 2014.

The project will also contribute significantly to the economic development of three provinces � Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh � where there is no thermo-power station at the moment.

The project will also encourage private investment in Nghi Son 2 IPP Thermal Power Plant, which will be located next to the project.

According to the sixth Power Development Master Plan, Vietnam’s power demand is expected to grow 17 percent annually in 2006-2015 and unless new power sources are installed in the north by 2015, this area would face serious power shortages.

Since resuming ODA for Vietnam in 1992, total Japanese aid for the power sector has amounted to 422 billion yen, or about $4.7 billion, financing the power plant construction and rehabilitation with total capacity of 4,500 MW.

Tags: Vietnam electricity, Vietnam energy, Vietnam power shortage

Posted by VBN on Jul 10 2010. Filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry