electricity

The average retail price of electricity has been set at VND 2,103.1159 per kWh, excluding value-added tax (VAT). This price structure, detailed in an appendix to the decision, applies to both users and retailers and does not include VAT…

Of note, EVN has been running at a loss for some time and banking huge losses with no retail power prices increases in the four years to November 2023. For reference, the average electricity price for the world is 15.5 US cents per kilowatt-hour with electricity in Vietnam running at about 7.5 US cents per kilowatt-hour…

The bulk of this power has been produced by burning coal which accounted for 49.6 percent of Vietnam’s electricity supply in the third quarter of the year, though notably this was down from about 57 percent in the first half of the year…

Of note, the bulk of that power has come from burning coal with hydropower plants being used as back up in order to avoid the power outages that plagued the northern provinces last year. Coal production in Vietnam, however, has fallen this year by about 12.3 percent. Consequently, there has been a spike in coal imports this year of 32.7 percent by value and 16 percent by volume.

Vietnam’s state power provider Electricity Vietnam or EVN has reached an agreement with the Vietnam Development Bank for US$2 billion to build more power generation and transmission lines. The agreement was arranged on the back of borrowing limits with commercial banks being reached and challenges accessing foreign capital…

Of note, originally the MoIT had been pushing for no feed-in tariffs on rooftop solar. It had then, at the request of the government, reluctantly agreed to have feed-in tariffs–paid at about 2.6 cents per kilowatt-hour–but limited to just ten percent of the installation’s capacity. This is off the back of past rooftop solar policies causing broad challenges for Vietnam’s electricity sector…

Of note, retail electricity prices in Vietnam are regulated and, though permitted, price rises are not all that common. This has led to EVN selling electricity below cost price. As of January, it was losing about VND 142.5 per kilowatt-hour sold. This has been ongoing for some time and has led to EVN accumulating the huge aforementioned losses. The issue here seems to be a reluctance to raise electricity prices rather than an inability to do so…

Of note, retail electricity prices in Vietnam are regulated and, though permitted, price rises are not all that common. This has led to EVN selling electricity below cost price. As of January, it was losing about VND 142.5 per kilowatt-hour sold. This has been ongoing for some time and has led to EVN accumulating the huge aforementioned losses. The issue here seems to be a reluctance to raise electricity prices rather than an inability to do so…

The government has gone to great lengths to assure foreign investors that the supply will be adequate this year, however, moves to eek out support from foreign investors in reducing their power consumption seems to suggest otherwise–Just weeks ago, it was reported that Apple supplier Foxconn had been asked to curtail its power usages by 30 percent in anticipation of power shortages…

Nuclear power in Vietnam has been floated before. In 2006, the government announce plans to have a nuclear power plant online by 2020 and this was followed a few years later by official plans for nuclear power plants in southern Vietnam in Ninh Thuan and Khanh Hoa provinces. These were, however, shelved in 2016 in favour of gas and coal on the back of lower demand projections…

This is interesting in that hydropower has been underutilised this year compared to last. Just 15 percent of Vietnam’s power came from hydro from January to April of this year, compared to 25 percent for the same period last year. At the same time it has been reported that about 64.6 percent of Vietnam’s electricity came from burning coal in April, whereas in 2023, on average, coal was responsible for just 46 percent of Vietnam’s electricity supply.

Vietnam committed to being net-zero by 2050 at the 26th Conference of Parties, however, there have been a number of roadblocks. A Just Energy Transition Partnership agreement, for example, signed back in 2022, was touted as the foundation for a move to greener power generation. Leaked British diplomatic cables, however, suggest there is little confidence among the JETP partners…