Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Vietnam Electricity (EVN) has received bids for the sale of electricity supply from seven wind power investors in Laos with a total capacity of nearly 4,150 megawatts (MW).
The delivery of wind power from Laos to Vietnam will be through transmission lines in the central province of Quang Tri, so the amount of electricity purchased will largely depend on the infrastructure in the region.
However, the wind power generation that Lao investors intend to sell to Vietnam will exceed the capacity of Quang Tri’s power grid as most of the province’s power lines are only 200 kV and 110 kV and are designed to operate using 80 percent and 100 percent of capacity.
Especially in the dry season from May to July, the province can only receive a maximum of 300 MW of electricity while the other months of the year can receive lower amounts of electricity.
The wind power plant with a capacity of 682 MW will be sold by Laos before 2025 and the remaining shortfall will be delivered after that period.
In order to meet the project completion schedule of 2025, the project investor, Vetnam Laos Energy Investment and Development Corporation, submitted documents to EVN proposing to sell electricity from the project to Vietnam.
The investor suggested investing in the entire grid connection project to connect the power plant to Vietnam’s power system using the project funds.
Earlier, EVN reported that the governments of Laos and Vietnam had agreed to import 1,000 MW of electricity from Laos to Vietnam by 2020. The volume of imported electricity is expected to reach about 3,000 MW in 2025 and about 5,000 MW in 2030.
In October 2023, the Prime Minister approved a proposal to import electricity from various sources in Laos with a total capacity of 2,689 MW.
EVN has also signed 19 power purchase agreements to buy electricity from 26 Lao power plants with a total capacity of 2,240 MW.
Among these projects, seven projects have been put into commercial operation with a total capacity of 806 MW and an additional 1,171 MW is expected to be put into operation by 2025.