The Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Vietnam will increase imports of electricity from Laos to meet the rising electricity consumption demand.
EVN will issue price framework to increase electricity imports from Laos. (Illustrative photo: Icon.com.vn)
Currently, the Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) has signed 19 power purchase agreements (PPA) to buy electricity from 26 Laotian power plants with a total capacity of 2,689MW to perform power transmission to Vietnam.
Amid the forecast of doubling electricity usage demand by 2030, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines shall propose the governments and prime ministers of both countries to allow increasing electricity import capacity to Vietnam up to 5,000MW by 2025, being about 2,000MW higher than the signed agreements between the two countries at the current times.
According to the plan for implementing National Power Development Plan VIII recently approved by the Prime Minister, Vietnam also plans to buy about 5,000MW of electricity from Laos by 2025 and rise to 8,000MW by 2030.
As for electricity purchase prices and sales prices, the Ministry of Industry and Trade informed that Laos would like to soon have Vietnam's electricity purchase price framework after 2025 with the ceiling price for importing electricity from Laos at 6,95 cents per kWh, equal to VND1,700 per kWh.
Currently, the price for buying electricity from Laos until 2025 is 6.95 cents per kWh, but the price framework after 2025 has not been issued yet.
EVN is drafting the framework for purchasing electricity from Laos after 2025 to report to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. After that, the ministry shall submit the evaluation opinions to the Prime Minister for consideration and approval.
Source: SGGP