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| Drought conditions are causing water shortage in hydroelectric reservoirs |
Meanwhile, there is a limited supply from Van Nam Province (China) because they are also dealing with drought.
Van Nam Province reduced 30% output sold to Vietnam, according to Dang Hoang An, Deputy Director of Vietnam Electricity Corporation (EVN).
Water level of hydroelectric reservoirs in the North continues going down compared with average amount in past years. Hoa Binh, Thac Ba and Tuyen Quang lakes have 1.28, 3.93, 12.98 meter of water level, respectively, lower than the same period of last year.
At present, 20 hydroelectric plants are producing more than 50 million kilowatt hours per day. They work only 8 hours per day in order to control water levels so they do not to reach a dead level.
Tuyen Quang hydropower plant with 342MW capacity produces only about 400,000 kilowatt hours per day. Song Ba Ha hydropower plan with 220MW capacity produces about 270,000 kilowatts per day.
EVN can foresee the situation so they bought electricity from China at a high price. Although water levels are very low, 400 million cubic meters of water from Hoa Binh, Thac Ba, Tuyen Quang lakes were used for Winter-Spring crop of 2009-2010.
According to Nguyen Lan Chau, Vice Manager of National Center for Hydro Meteorological Forecasting, dried out water from rivers in China and their hydropower plant operation has made the drought situation worse in Vietnam.
Vietnam will be severely affected by El Nino until this May that caused 30-50% less rainfall than in past years.
In order to deal with this situation, under requests prime Prime Minster and Ministry of Industry & Trade, EVN is closely monitoring hydro meteorological forecasting and utilising all power sources.
Meanwhile, EVN is calling for power savings. It released a statement saying, “It’s necessary to save power not just because of power shortage but we need to do it always to protect our limited natural resources. It is a duty of not only the electricity industry but also of the whole country. If we can do that, the situation will be improved in dry seasons.”