EVN has 14 hydro-electricity plants and nine coal-fired power plants that are scheduled to come into operation from 2010-2015. Among these plants, operations of 13 plants have been delayed at least one year and Thac Mo hydro-electricity plant in Binh Phuoc province is being reconsidered in terms of the project’s efficiency.

 

Among the plants scheduled to be operated in 2009, so far, five plants have no longer met deadlines and would delay their electricity generation until 2010. These plants include Ban Ve (160MW) in Nghe An province, An Khe Kanak (173   MW) in Binh Dinh-Gia Lai province, Dong Nai 3 (180MW) in Lam Dong and Dak Nong. Particularly, two large northern thermal-electricity plants, Quang Ninh I (300MW) and Hai Phong 2 (300MW), have also been delayed for one year.

 

With such delay, the national electricity system is short of 1,113   MW compared to total supplementary demand of 2,969 MW this year, failing to meet 37 percent of the full-year plan.

 

This is a large volume of electricity when the country always does not have standby electricity. Especially, the above figure is only of total electricity plants of EVN but that has not yet mentioned on electricity plants of other investors.

 

The delayed electricity volume is even higher than newly-supplemented electricity capacity of 2006 (770MW), of 2007 (564MW) and of 2008 (852MW).

 

Ta Van Huong, director of Energy Department of the industry and commerce ministry, said that delaying the pace of developing electricity plants is typical for the Electricity Plan 6. When a plant delays its items for one year, this will delay the pace of electricity generation of the entire plant for the whole period.

 

Dinh Quang Tri said that the delay is attributed to different reasons but mainly objective reasons from contractors. Tri added that when inflation occurred in 2008, many contractors demonstrated their weak financial capacity and had to delay their construction because they were short of money to buy materials.

EVN also reported this fact to the industry and trade ministry. As for four key electricity plants that should be kicked off this year, the delay is demonstrated right from borrowing capital and bidding.

 

Tri said that Mong Duong thermal-electricity project 1 (1,000MW) is scheduled to be kicked off in December but not until next week, will EVN be able to get approval for loans from Asian Development Bank (ADB).

 

Therefore, issuing bid invitation documents is also delayed. Only if the bid succeeds, the project will be kicked off in the first quarter of 2010.

 

As for Nghi Son thermal-electricity plant 1 (600MW), although the bid was opened, EVN has recently asked the industry and trade ministry to cancel the bid to re-open the bid package for the second time. Tri said that the contractor offered too high price. If EVN accepts that price, the electricity price will be high accordingly. At this project, contractors offered up to $1,700-2,300/kW. Thus, EVN has to accept to suspend the project for longer time.

 

A series of other electricity projects have also got stuck in site clearance and unfavourable weather conditions. It can be seen that large electricity projects will be delayed in following years. Domino effects are unavoidable. The Electricity Plant 6, although having been developed for two years, is forecast to be delayed by industry experts.

 

Therefore, pressure on meeting electricity demand will be increasingly tenser. Ta Van Huong said that those shortcomings will be carefully analysed, accessed so building the Electricity Plan 7 will be better.

 

In the first eight months, five engine teams were operated with total capacity of 994MW, meeting only 36 percent of newly supplementary electricity target. By the end of this year, EVN will complete trial and put into operation three engine teams with total capacity of 650MW. By 2010, EVN will generate additional 2,130MW to the national electricity system.