Vietnam Govt asks EVN to make power prices transparent

The government of Vietnam has recently requested the state-run Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) to make public constituents of power prices, the local newswire VnExpress reported September 5.

The government also ordered the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to supervise power plants’ selling prices to EVN to ensure transparency and create basis for the government’s regulation.

Earlier, MoIT made a proposal on new power price mechanism, under which the country will hike power price quarterly in line with the rises in coal, oil and gas prices as well as forex rate. The new mechanism will be effective one year after getting approval.

An official of the MoIT’s Electricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV) said the nation may float electricity price in the coming years in a bid to attract more investment in the industry, boost power supply and ease the current power shortage.

The government, meanwhile, urged the MoIT to take drastic measures to boost power generation capacity to ensure sufficient power supply.

EVN said the power supply in October this year will continue to be tough with daily average power supply in the whole system of 287.7 million kWh/day and the maximum capacity of 15,500- 16,000 MW. Some coal-fired power plants are under maintenance and some hydropower plants run under-capacity due to shortage of water supply. The nation has so far no stand-by power. – Stoxplus.com

Tags: Vietnam electricity, Vietnam energy, Vietnam power prices