The Ministry of Industry and Trade has just asked relevant ministries and localities to give their opinions on the policy of importing wind power from the Truong Son wind power plant from Laos to Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, this project has a capacity of 250 MW in Bolikhamsai province of Laos, and will be operational in the fourth quarter of 2025.

wind power.jpg
Illustration

To import wind power from this plant to Vietnam, the proposed connection plan is to build a new 220kV double-circuit line from the 220kV transformer station of Truong Son wind power plant, with a length of 75km connecting to the 220kV feeder at the 220kV transformer station Do Luong (Nghe An - Vietnam).

EVN's report said that the group received a document from the investor - Vietnam-Laos Energy Investment and Development Joint Stock Company, proposing to sell electricity from this project to Vietnam.

The investor committed to apply the electricity price according to regulations, with the ceiling price for importing electricity from Laos to Vietnam for wind power plants being 6.95 US cents/kWh (about 1,700 VND/kWh at the current exchange rate).

To meet the project completion schedule in 2025, the investor proposed to invest in the entire grid connection project to connect Truong Son wind power plant to Vietnam's power system using the project's capital.

According to EVN, the memorandum of understanding between the governments of Laos and Vietnam sets the minimum capacity for importing electricity from Laos to Vietnam by 2020 at about 1,000MW, by 2025 at about 3,000MW and by 2030 at about 5,000MW.

As of the end of October 2023, the Prime Minister has approved the policy of importing electricity from sources in Laos with a total capacity of 2,689 MW.

Of which, EVN has signed 19 power purchase agreements (PPAs) to purchase electricity from 26 Lao power plants with a total capacity of 2,240MW. Including 7 projects that have been put into commercial operation with a total capacity of 806MW and are expected to put into operation an additional 1,171MW by 2025.

Of the 6 hydropower plants with a capacity of 449MW, 4 plants have been assigned by EVN to the Electricity Trading Company (EPTC) to negotiate PPA. The remaining 2 plants, Nam Kong 1 (160MW) and Nam Mouan (100MW), the investor has sent a document to EVN notifying them not to continue selling electricity.

For projects operating after 2025, continued implementation will depend largely on the mechanism, policies and imported electricity prices after 2025.

Thus, up to now, the total power capacity in Laos that has been approved for electricity import to Vietnam and can be put into operation by 2025 is only about 1,977 MW, much lower than the import scale according to the memorandum of understanding.

Therefore, EVN proposed that the Ministry of Industry and Trade appraise and submit to the Prime Minister the policy of importing electricity from Truong Son wind power plant, supplement the planning of power lines for connection, as well as provide guidance on the mechanism of imported electricity prices and import contracts in accordance with regulations.

Regarding wind power, after the Prime Minister's Decision 39 was issued on September 10, 2018, this field has also begun to attract the attention of many investors. The FIT price for wind power is 8.5 cents/kWh, equivalent to 2,000 VND/kWh at the current exchange rate.

Thanks to that, by the end of 2021, the installed wind power capacity had reached 4,126 MW.

On January 7, 2023, the Minister of Industry and Trade issued a decision on the transitional price framework for solar and wind power plants. Accordingly, the ceiling price applied to onshore wind power is VND 1,587.12/kWh, and offshore wind power is VND 1,815.95/kWh.

The debt worth 1,200 billion VND that the owner of Vietnam's first wind power plant has just been announced by Agribank to be auctioned is not the only large debt of the group of businesses related to businessman Pham Van Minh at this bank.