It was announced last week that Vietnam’s state owned power provider EVN was considering importing electricity from Laos at 7 cents per kilowatt. Nestled just near the bottom of this article from VN Express on the issue is a comment from Bui Van Thinh, chairman of the Binh Thuan Wind Power Association: “EVN needs to fulfil its commitments to local renewable companies to buy their electricity.”
Note that, a feed-in-tariff policy that expired in 2021 provided very attractive rates for new wind power projects, between 8.5 cents and 9.8 cents per kilowatt. This led to a boom in wind farms all over the country. This, however, has overloaded the grid in many instances and wind power producers have on multiple occasions been forced to curtail production which means less electricity to sell and less revenue
Furthermore, for several years now the price of electricity, which is set by the state, has been lower than the cost of production. This led to big losses for the state power provider–US$1.5 billion in 2022.
In this context, one reading of Bui’s comments above could be that wind power firms see this Laos-power-import idea as EVN looking for cheaper sources, in order to avoid buying the more expensive local electricity, rather than simply to supplement shortages in Vietnam.