Vietnam to have shortfall of 218 billion kWh of electricity by 2020

With the current socio-economic growth, Vietnam is expected to have shortfall of 112 billion kWh of electricity by 2010 and 218 billion kWh by 2020, according to the trade and industry ministry.

Thus, in order to meet energy demand for the economic development, the National Assembly has approved a resolution on investment plan for Lai Chau Hydro-electricity Plant Project and NinhThuan Nuclear Power Plant Project.

Ta Van Huong, director of the trade and industry ministry’s energy department, said that the government instructed the trade and industry ministry and relevant ministries, agencies to research, study Lai Chau Hydro-electricity Plant Project and NinhThuan Nuclear Power Plant Project long time ago and list the two projects into the master plan of Vietnam’s electricity system development.

Huong said that building Lai Chau Hydro-electricity Plant would meet various favourable conditions because investor, Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN), has much experience in building big hydro-electricity projects in previous time such as Hoa Binh, Yaly, Son La hydro-electricity plants.

“Particularly, almost all steps during development of Son La Hydro-electricity plant such as planning, designing, consulting, operating and so on were taken over by domestic experts. This was a decisive factor so that Son La hydro-electricity plant was completed on time as instructed by the government and was completed two years earlier than the National Assembly’s target.

Such experience would be applied for Lai Chau hydro-electricity plant,” said Huong and believed that building Lai Chau hydro-electricity plant is even better than Son La Hydro-electricity Plant.

However, if the electricity system is supplemented electricity from the existing thermo-electricity, hydro-electricity plants only, it is likely that the country would be short of energy for socio-economic development.

Thus, according to the National Assembly’s representatives the resolution on investing into building NinhThuan Nuclear Power plant by this time is absolutely correct.

Many representatives said that when deciding to build this plant, the National Assembly consider energy sources in the far future, conforming to the country’s socio-economic development programme. Chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Science-Technology and Environment Dang Vu Minh said that in short term, hydro-electricity and thermo-electricity still continues to play a major role in supply of electricity however in the far future, nuclear power will play a crucial role in Vietnam’s electricity system because the production cost for one kWh of nuclear power is not only stable but also is more competitive than thermo-electricity plants when Vietnam has to import coal to serve thermo-electricity plants.

Regarding safety issue, Le Van Hong, vice director of Vietnam’s Atomic Energy Institute, said that in order to ensure safety construction and operation for a nuclear power plant, International Atomic Energy Agency set three phases with 19 strict criteria. In addition to construction sites, technologies, capacity, experience of plant operation of experts, engineers, workers play a crucial role. “That the National Assembly approved the development of Ninh Thuan Nuclear Power Project, according to IAEA’s standards, proves that we have completed that first phase.

In order to start the second phase, by early December, eight experienced experts in building nuclear power plants of IAEA will visit Vietnam to cooperate with the trade and industry ministry and the science and technology ministry to recheck the whole infrastructure to serve the plant development. If we follow the standards that IAEA set, there would not be many difficulties, challenges for safe construction, operation of the first nuclear power plant,” said Hong.

Regarding the construction site, Hong said that IAEA also put forward strict criteria and anticipate possible situations such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami, and others.

“Selecting Ninh Thuan as the construction site for the nuclear power plant is based on the criteria IAEA set. In addition, we have asked for help from IAEA and learn experience from other countries with the same conditions to Vietnam such as Japan, Korea, and China in building nuclear power plants,” Hong added.

Vice general director of EVN, investor of Ninh Thuan Nuclear Power Plant Project, Duong Quang Thanh said that in addition to hundreds of experts from Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, Da Lat Nuclear Power Institute, EVN now has some 50 highly-qualified engineers in applying nuclear power in the economic sector.

“Together with continuing sending engineers to foreign countries with advanced nuclear power technology to take part in training courses such as Russia, France, Japan and others, in the future we will be absolutely able to hold the ownership in operating Ninh Thuan Nuclear Power Plant as well as other plants which would be built later,” said Thanh.

Tags: Vietnam electricity