MOIT has requested relevant ministries, branches and localities to give their opinions about the plan on importing electricity from Truong Son power plant in Laos to Vietnam.

The plant with capacity of 250 MW is located in Bolikhamsai province in Laos and is scheduled to become operational in the fourth quarter 2025.

To import electricity from Laos, it would be necessary to build a new 220 KV transmission line with the length of 75 kilometers from the 220KV transformer station at Truong Son Plant in Laos to the Do Luong 220 KV transformer station in Nghe An, Vietnam. 

The EVN’s statement to MOIT says EVN has received a document from the investor of the plant – Vietnam-Laos Investment and Power Development JSC which proposes a sale of electricity to be generated by the project to Vietnam.

Regarding the electricity import prices, the investor says it will observe the pricing mechanism with the ceiling price of 6.95 US cent per kwh, or VND1,700 according to the current exchange rate.

To complete the project on schedule by 2025, the investor has proposed that the transmission line connecting to Truong Son power plant and Vietnam’s national grid will be implemented with the project’s capital.

According to EVN, the MOU signed by the governments of Laos and Vietnam says the minimum import volume from Laos would reach 1,000 MW by 2020, 3,000 MW by 2025 and 5,000 MW by 2030.

As of the end of October 2023, PM Pham Minh Chinh had approved the import of 2,689 MW worth of electricity capacity from different sources in Laos.

EVN has signed 19 PPAs (power purchase agreements) to buy electricity from 26 Lao power plants with total capacity of 2,240 MW, including seven commercially operational plants with the total capacity of 806 MW. It is expected that 1,171 MW more would become operational by 2025.

There are six hydropower plants with the total capacity of 449 MW. EVN has assigned EPTC (Electricity Purchase and Trading Company) to negotiate with Lao partners for PPAs of four power plants. The other two plants, including Nam Kong 1 (160 MW) and Nam Mouan (100 MW), won’t continue to sell electricity as shown in the document sent by the investors to EVN.

As for the projects to become operational after 2025, the deployment will depend on policies and import prices.

As such, to date, the total power capacity that Vietnam has committed to purchase from Laos by 2025 is 1,977 MW, much lower than the intended volume shown in the MOU.

Luong Bang