The Ministry of Industry and Trade on August 3 hosted a press conference in Hanoi to announce the Prime Minister’s decision on approval of the National Electricity Development Plan in the 2011 - 2020 period with vision to 2030 (briefly called as Electricity Plan VII).
Objectives of the Electricity Plan VII are to use effectively domestic energy sources, import inputs for power production, supply electricity with higher quality and more reasonable prices, and ensure national energy security.Vietnam plans to import and produce between 194 billion and 210 billion kWh of electricity in 2015. Production and imports will rise to between 330 billion and 362 billion kWh in 2020. The country will give priority to developing renewable energy sources for electricity production to increase the ratio of this source of energy from 3.5 percent of the total output in 2010 to 4.5 percent in 2020. In the next ten years, the power industry will reduce GDP electricity-elasticity from 2.0 down to 1.5 by 2015 and 1.0 by 2020. The sector will also speed up the electrification programme in rural areas to ensure that almost all households in rural areas will have access to power by 2020.To fulfil the set targets, total investment capital for the whole electricity sector is expected to reach VND929.7 trillion (US$48.8 billion) till 2020, or US$4.88 billion a year on average. In the 2011-2020 period, investment in power sources will amount to VND619.3 trillion, or 66.6 percent of total investment capital, while total investment for grid networks will reach VND210.4 trillion, accounting for 33.4 percent of the total investment capital.
