Saturday, 23/11/2024 | 20:17 GMT+7
Featuring tropical monsoon climate, a high density of rivers
and streams that are proportionally dispersed and comparatively sloping
terrains
A tremendous opportunity for development
The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) has made constant efforts
to build big hydropower plants such as Son La, Ban Ve and Dai Ninh in the past
couples of years. A number of businesses inside and outside of the power sector
have taken bold steps to invest in small and medium-range hydropower plants.
Latest figures presented by Nguyen Minh Viet, MA, from the Institute for
Hydropower and Renewable Energy at the recent Enerexpo Vietnam 2010 exhibition
showed that small and medium size
hydropower plants currently represent 40 percent of system’ total production
capacity.
Unlike big hydropower plants, small hydropower plants are mostly built with owner’s capital or with loans taken from individuals and private businesses. Therefore, the time for implementing the projects is often shorter than that of projects getting realized with capital taken from the state budget. Besides, usually small hydropower plants do not need big water reservoir for moderation purposes. With a simple exploitation scheme and not very complex technology and equipment domestic companies are in a position to carry out most small hydropower projects to make effective use of available potential.
Though a majority of small hydropower plants are controlled
by local governments, they are considered to be highly exploitable and
compatible to
Nevertheless, industry specialists say that small hydropower plants are likely to gather momentum for development in the next five to ten years. Currently, for the potential to be effectively exploited to serve people, particularly those in highland areas a lot of problems need to be resolved in a timely manner.
Temporality delayed projects reach a high level
Up to 61 percent of small hydropower plants have halted
operations temporarily. The figure was made public in the recent Enerexpo
Vietnam 2010 conference. In the face of tremendous hydropower potential
The researcher circle has attributed small hydropower plants’ low performance to poor equipment quality, particularly that at under 100KW plants. Frequent water shortages in the dry season also badly affect hydropower plant operations. It is then urgent to introduce a viable management model that could bring forth the responsibility of relevant stakeholders to ensure the plant sustained operations.
A low-cost energy source with active contributions to
socioeconomic development in rural and highland areas, small hydropower
projects requires particular attention from the State and the Government for
effective exploitation. In the coming period, whether small and medium size
hydropower is in a position to become an appealing market for domestic and
foreign investors partly depends on the state investment encouragement
policies.
By Hung Linh