The Power Generation Company 1 (GENCO 1) under Electricity of Vietnam Group inked a deal with Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation on November 25 on the expansion of the Duyen Hai 3 thermal power plant.

Accordingly, the expansion work will be done by the Japanese corporation under an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract worth over 891.6 million USD, of which 85 percent comes from both domestic and foreign commercial loans.

It will include the construction of a turbine with designed capacity of 660 MW, which will help the plant, whose construction was kicked off in 2012, generate 3.9 billion kWh.

At the signing ceremony, GENCO 1 Chairman Nguyen Loan said the Duyen Hai 3 plant covering an area of over 878 hectares in Dan Thanh commune, Duyen Hai district, is amongst the 4 thermal power plants with total capacity of 4,200 MW in the Mekong delta province of Tra Vinh.

Tsutomu Akimoto, a representative of Sumitomo Corporation, expressed his confidence on the firm’s technical reliability, which was attested by the EVN’s first thermal power plant, the Pha Lai 2 plant, which was built a decade ago and is operating smoothly.

Construction of the expanded Duyen Hai 3 plant will start this December with a total investment of 1.82 billion USD.

It is expected to be operational from 2018 onwards to help the country solve electricity shortage for the southern region, particularly during dry seasons.-VNA