Vietnam will face severe power shortages from 2021: ministry

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February 12, 2020

Highlights

- Vietnam’s demand for electricity will exceed its supply by 6.6 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2021

- The World Bank last year said that Vietnam needs to invest up to $150 billion by 2030, almost twice the $80 billion spent on its power sector since 2010.

Goverment Projections

First reported in the Financial Times and Reuters, Vietnam will face severe power shortages from 2021. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has warned that power shortages could come as soon as 2021, and ordered other officials to speed up stalled plant projects.

Reporting to Reuters, state media said 47 of Vietnam’s 62 electric generation projects of 200 megawatts (MW) or more faced delays, with some at least two years behind schedule.

Current Production

There is concern over how Vietnam is going to meet its future energy needs. Current production has relied heavily on coal, fuel oil, and hydropower. The country is now fast-tracking solar power, studying the large-scale import of liquefied natural gas and looking into importing power from neighbouring countries, according to government officials and industry analysts.

According to the US Export.gov website: 

In the revised Power Development Plan VII (PDP 7), released in 2017, installed power-generation capacity in Vietnam amounts to 42.13 GW, of which 37.6 percent is hydropower and 34.3 percent is coal-fired thermal power. It also sets out $148 billion worth of investments to increase power generation and develop the electricity network, with $40 billion to be spent in the period 2016-2020, of which 75 percent is to be directed to power sources and 25 percent to grid development.

Vietnam was among several other countries investing more than USD $1 Billion in renewable energy capacity.

Outlook

With the demand for electricity expected to grow by 9 percent per year, the need for sustainable sources of energy production will be ever more crucial. The future growth of the Vietnamese economy will depend on it.

Sources: Vietnam will face severe power shortages from 2021: ministry, Vietnam power crunch threatens future economy

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