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National energy master plan is necessary (20/5)

20/05/2013 - 10 Lượt xem

Impractical planning
Chairman of the Vietnam Energy Association (VEA) Tran Viet Ngai said at the Energy and Oil & Gas: Investment and Sustainable Development Forum held by VEA and the Ministry of Industry and Trade that a national energy master plan was necessary to solve the difficulties in the implementation of national energy strategy.
According to Tran Viet Ngai, Vietnam has had seven development plans for power, five for coal, three for gas, and one for renewable energies. However, due to a lack of a national energy master plan, all above mentioned plans have been deployed ineffectively. In addition, all these sectoral plans will last in about five years, which is fairly a short term, while a common sectoral plan should take from 10 to 15 years, with a vision of 20-30 years onward.
 Planning difficulties
According to Dr. Tran Hong Nguyen from the Electric Power University, coal prices and power prices do not reflect the relations between input material and output product. In fact, coal often sold to power plants at lower prices than it really cost, which cause difficulties for coal industry. Meanwhile, for various reasons, the power sector still faces losses on annual basis.
“Most of power development projects under the power plan 7 have turned out to be behind schedule and unable to go into operation during the period 2011-2025,” Tran Viet Ngai said.
Over the past 15 years, coal industry has experienced annually increased cost of production from 4-5 percent on account of increased charges and fees including environmental charge. So it is hard to meet the demand for coal by 2016 of 55-58 million tonnes.
“Many objectives are often included in every devised plan; however, there is a lack of solution package for the plan. For example, some projects made under an approved plan find it hard to get investors,” Tran Viet Ngai said.
Government direction is needed
According to experts, impractical plans were due to a funding lack, i.e. the earlier funded industry may deploy its plans earlier than others. To write off the issue, VEA requests the government to rapidly adjust and complete the national master plan for energy development during the 2011-2020 period, with a vision toward 2030, as part of the national energy development strategy.
The power plan 7 should be revised in terms of socioeconomic efficiency and demand, especially for the 2013-2015 period, with a vision toward 2030 and even 2050. In addition, renewable energy development incentive and support mechanisms should be offered so as to attract investors into this sector, and the Renewable Energy Law should be rapidly and carefully prepared and submitted to the General Assembly for approval./.

Source: VEN.