Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked local authorities to guarantee enough power for economic development in the years to come.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the meeting on Dec 25. Photo: EVN

Ensuring enough electricity for the development is "an order", PM Phuc said at the year-end review meeting Wednesday by Vietnam Electricity (EVN).

The PM made the statement after he was reported that the construction of some key power generation projects might fail to meet the deadline.

This is not the first time the PM made a firm statement on power production. He has several times requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) and EVN to ensure sufficient power for economic development at any cost.

Phuc asked EVN and related agencies to check 60 power generation projects (of at least 200 megawatts (MW) each) which are planned to become operational by 2030 and 35 ongoing projects with a total capacity of 39,000 MW which falls behind the deadline.

He asked EVN to speed up 10 power production projects namely Quang Trach 1 and Quang Trach 2 Thermal Power Plants, Dung Quat 1, Dung Quat 3, O Mon 3, O Mon 4, Hoa Binh Hydropower Extension, Yaly Hydropower Extension, Tri An Hydropower Extension, and Bac Ai Hydropower.

According to EVN’s report, the country’s installed power capacity is likely to reach 54,880 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2019, which is the second largest in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia.

In 2019, power consumption is about 210 billion kWh.

In the year, EVN offers power to 28 million customs. The group has an estimated revenue of VND393.23 trillion (US$17.1 billion), up 14.3% on-year. Of the total, VND387.67 trillion (US$16.85 billion) comes from power sales, up 16.4% on-year.

In 2019, Vietnam ranks 27th among 190 countries and territories for access to electricity (which is the ratio of people access to electricity in a country) and 4th in Southeast Asia.

EVN said the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) (the average outage duration for each customer served) in 2019 fell 11% from the previous year but giving no detail on the specific power outage.