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EVN suggests raising permissible electricity loss rate
The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) has presented a plan on minimising the electricity loss rate. However, what surprises everyone is that EVN is seeking permission to raise the rate to 9% from 8%.
In 2005-2006, after realising that the electricity loss rate during transmission was overly high, the government asked EVN to apply necessary measures to reduce the rate to one digit.
In Prime Minister’s Decision No 276 promulgated in 2006, the prime minister stated that the rate must not be higher than 8%.
However, the Ministry of Industry and Trade last week introduced the programme on minimising the electricity loss rate, suggesting that the rate be raised to 9% by 2010.
The total capacity of operational electricity sources in Vietnam is about 14,500 MW, which still cannot meet the demand, especially in the dry season.
Electricity shortage and electricity cuts have been happening regularly. In 2008, the electricity loss percentage was 9.8%, an overly high figure, more than the electricity output generated annually by the 1,200 MW Hoa Binh Hydropower Plant.
Every percentage of the electricity loss rate has great significance.
Leaders of EVN say that they have been trying to reduce the loss rate year by year. In 2000, the rate was 14.5%.
However, the electricity loss rate in Vietnam proves to be very high in comparison with the rates in Malaysia and Thailand (6%), and Singapore (3%).
The Electricity Regulartory Authority under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the agency which is examining the report about electricity loss, said that EVN’s report does not have enough detail and lacks arguments to support a higher loss rate.
Dao Minh Hien, Head of the Planning and Supply-Demand Supervision Division under the Electricity Regulatory Authority, said that the authority has asked EVN to draw up a more detailed plan and explain why it suggests a loss rate higher than the level decided upon by the PM.
Hien thinks that EVN has suggested a higher rate because it previously only counted losses during wholesale, while it did not count losses from retail, from which the loss rate is always higher.
The ‘virtual’ achievements’?
Explaining the higher suggested loss rate, Le Van Chuyen, Deputy Head of the Business and Power Development in Rural Areas under EVN, said that EVN will have to assume management over the electricity distribution network in 5,000 communes with 7 million households.
“The loss rate in these areas proves to be very high, at 25% on average. Therefore, the general loss rate will not be as low as 8%,” Chuyen said.
With the explanation, people now realise that the electricity loss rate EVN has been reporting every year is just the loss in the transmission and distribution areas which are under the management of EVN, not the loss rate throughout the whole country.
As such, achievements surrounding the electricity loss rate are just ‘virtual achievements’. Meanwhile, in the last many years, no technical solutions have been applied to reduce the loss rates in vast rural areas.
VietNamNet, VnMedia
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