Electrification of rural areas has made great strides over the past decade. Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Hanoi, (VNA) - The implementation of synchronous measures to improve the power supply system has brought a facelift to Vietnamese rural areas, with 99.98 percent of communes nationwide and 98.83 percent of households accessing electricity as of 2017.
One decade ago, the rates were 97 percent and 93.4 percent, respectively.
The result was attributable to projects carried out by the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) in the past decade with financing from official development assistance (ODA) loans worth about 2 billion USD from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the French Development Agency, the German Development Bank, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
Besides, the group has spent over 5.5 trillion VND (240.9 million USD) implementing projects to connect 369 communes with nearly 400,000 families in far-flung rural and border areas of Son La, Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Bac Kan, Nghe An, Lang Son, Khanh Hoa, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang, Hau Giang, Ca Mau, and Kien Giang to the national grid.
EVN has invested in building power supply systems for island districts and communes to develop sea-based economy, protect the marine environment, and contribute to safeguarding the national sovereignty over seas and islands.
It has built overhead electricity lines and cross-sea submarine cable lines at total cost of over 6.1 trillion VND (267.1 million USD) to island districts such as Co To (Quang Ninh), Phu Quoc, Kien Hai (Kien Giang), and Ly Son (Quang Ngai) as well as many island communes across the country, supplying electricity for over 140,000 households.
Besides building the transmission networks, EVN also gradually took over the management of the low-voltage networks operated by local organisations. As of the end of 2017, the group took over the management of networks in nearly 6,000 communes in rural areas with over 6.2 million households and spent nearly 8 trillion VND on upgrading the transmission grids.
The Northern Electricity Corporation has set the goal of connecting 100 percent of households in rural areas to the national grid by 2020.-VNA
VNA
