As part of Vietnam’s largest power center, the Song Hau Power Center, the infrastructure development project valued at VND3.983 trillion comprises the following major items: clearing site and temporarily zoning Song Hau Power Center in the first phase; building specialized ports including one port for equipment import that will be accessible to 3,000DWT vessels, one port for gypsum export accessible to 3,000DWT vessels, one port for limestone export accessible to 1,000DWT vessels and two ports for cinder export accessible to 3,000DWT ships; developing 22kV power and water supply systems for building Song Hau 1 Power Plant; and building workplace for the Long Phu-Song Hau Petroleum & Power Management Unit.

With an estimated production capacity of 5,200MW the Song Hau Power Center is Vietnam largest power center thus far whose capacity is more than double total designed capacity of Son La Hydropower Plant.

The Song Hau Power Center is defined as a regional power center whose core functions are to supply power to the national power grid (mainly serving southern areas and ensuring national power balance) through the 220/500kW north-south power transmission line. The center will include three coal-burnt thermo-power plants: the Song Hau 1 power plant (2x600MW), the Song Hau 2 power plant (2x1,000MW) and the Song Hau 3 power plant (2x1,000MW) and other associated infrastructure projects.

The first project, the Song Hau 1 power plant, will be developed by the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) with a total investment capital of around US$1.5 billion and total designed capacity of 2x600MW. The plant will comprise two turbine groups with a designed capacity of 600MW/each turbine and use imported coal. The water for cooling the turbines will be taken from the Hau River. The construction of the plant will begin in 2011 and the first turbine group will start generating power in late 2015 and the second turbine group in 2016.

With an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth of seven to eight percent annually from 2010-2015 the demand for power is forecast to increase 15-17 percent per year. Therefore, it is imperative to build Song Hau 1 power plant and several other coal-burnt power plants in the Mekong Delta to meet burgeoning socioeconomic development requirements in the region and the country as well, striving to turn Vietnam into an industrialized nation by 2020.

By Nga Nguyen