Consumers, regarding individuals and families, have to follow EVN’s various rates of electricity consumption. Electricity tariff rises as a kilowatt is additionally consumed in an hour. There is no discount for regular clients or wholesalers. Whereas, EVN often encourages, guides and appeals people for saving power. A wide range of campaigns and street hoardings are conducted, and tens or hundreds of billion dongs are spent with a merely purpose of guiding people to consume electricity efficiently and economically.
If EVN did its business in a perfect market, its owners could have looked up and cried: “oh heaven, why we must tolerate such woes? What a foolish job!”
Yet, actually, anyone of EVN’s owners does. Vietnam’s power market is not intrinsically a perfect market, i.e. a free market which is chiefly regulated by market rules. Since electricity is a source of energy that generates many business activities, tourism services, etc., it has an influence on the national economic and political situation.
When a storm causes a power cut in the center of Vietnam, it will affect manufacturing in the whole area, and take its toll not only on EVN’s businesses but on the entire economy. Hence, the Government’s intervention in this imperfect market is essential because of the necessity of such energy to many national activities.
Apart from the responsibility of manufacturing and trading, EVN is also in charge of maintaining and guaranteeing electricity supply service to individuals and institutions. Therefore, power industry is given a lot of preference in policies. That’s why customers can enjoy a lower price than how much EVN expect to sell its service. When electricity is overused, such preference is reduced and thus, its price rises.
Demanding customers can query that why EVN does not produce a lot of electricity for sales. Regretfully, that easy question encounters difficulty to be answered all over the world, not the Vietnam’s alone. As for electricity in particular, and energies in general, it’s not possible for all wishes.
Electricity in Vietnam is mainly generated from 2 sources of hydropower and thermal power. The hydropower source heavily depends on climate, so the construction of hydropower plants must take into consideration its impact on river flows and living condition in downstream. Carelessness can cause uncontrollable losses.
For thermal power, coal is limited. It is forecasted by experts that Vietnam will run out of coal in 120 years. In this situation, coal cannot be dug with impunity. So what about nuclear power? We haven’t developed that source of energy yet; moreover, its materials are limited. Looking up and down, we realize that mass production is applicable to many sectors except for power industry.
Under that circumstance, in addition to seeking for new ways of producing power, using power efficiently is obligatory and also beneficial to the country and community. Therefore, it’s not EVN alone be burdened with the propagation of efficient power consumption. And it’s not merely how to buy electricity at low prices but how to use it efficiently.
Efficient use of power, beside its own benefit of saving power, has a general benefit of maintaining the presence of the lifeline for the country longer and in a larger number. Perhaps, individuals and households should have a far-reaching vision in using the power to handle the country’s problem in energy. This problem is more important than perfect market’s rules.