A power plant of the KCP VN Industry Company. (Photo: tuoitre.vn) Hanoi (VNA) - The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) is consideringallowing companies that use a lot of power to buy electricity directly frompower plants.
Speakingat a press meeting in Hanoi on April 5, Nguyen Anh Tuan, director of theElectricity Regulatory Authority of Vietnam (ERAV), said they have been workingwith international consultancy firms to study the mechanism.
“Thepilot implementation aims to establish the competitive retail electricitymarket in 2021,” Tuan said.
Theministry launched the competitive power generation market in 2012 and thecompetitive wholesale power market at the beginning of this year.
Sincethen, 10 percent of the country’s total power capacity has been sold to powergeneration firms directly.
Fromthe beginning of this year, in addition to Vietnam Electricity (EVN), fiveother power corporations have been able to buy electricity from power plants.The ministry plans to gradually increase the number of such corporations in thecompetitive wholesale power market.
TheMoIT said after three months of running a competitive wholesale power market,the difficulties are mainly related to taxes and infrastructure as the numberof transactions in the market has sharply increased.
Theministry has to resolve issues of operation at power plants to ensure safe andstable operation.
Tuansaid they will continue to instruct agencies to complete infrastructure andhold training courses on the power market.
“Theministry is expected to review the operation of the competitive wholesaleelectricity market this month to collect difficulties to have timely solutionsto resolve the issues,” he added.
Renewablepower plants have not participated in the competitive market as only those withcapacity of more than 30MW can join the market.
Theoperation of the competitive wholesale electricity market from the beginning ofthe year has brought good opportunities to power buyers and sellers as well ascustomers.
Theministry has studied building a mechanism to encourage renewable energy plantsparticipate in the market to increase nationwide power supply.-VNA
