HANOI, May 10 (Xinhua) -- The state-owned utility Electricity Vietnam (EVN) warned of electricity shortages this summer amid low hydropower output coupled with rising demand, Vietnam News reported on Wednesday.
Hydropower plants operated by EVN are expected to cut their run rates due to low water levels, the utility group said, highlighting that the water level at reservoirs in the northern region in the first four months this year was equivalent to only 70-90 percent of the average in recent years, and the same things were happening in the country's central and southern parts.
The level of water in the reservoir as of April 24 dropped to the point which has resulted in the risk of a power shortage during the rest of this year, said EVN.
Currently, the water in the reservoir is expected to produce around 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours, 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours lower than planned, and 4.1 billion kilowatt-hours lower than the same period last year, EVN added.
The reservoir has hit a low due to extreme weather conditions this year in Vietnam that have been attributed, in part, to climate change, said experts.
The El Nino weather is likely to develop in June and July, and continue in the second half of this year, said Phan Van Tan, former head of the Department of Meteorology of the Hanoi University of Sciences.
While the expert could not predict the strength and the extent of the El Nino weather pattern, he was certain that the average temperature would be higher this summer.
Meanwhile, EVN's coal-fired power plants are faced with a shortage of coal supplies of up to 1.3 million tons of coal.
Vietnam, which has turned from a net coal exporter to a net importer for the past decade, imported 11.97 million tons of coal valued at 2 billion U.S. dollars in the first four months of the year, up 25.6 percent in terms of volume but down 15.3 percent in terms of value from a year earlier, according to the General Statistics Office.
Its coal output in the January-April period fell 1.9 percent from a year ago to 16.6 million tons, the statistics department said.
The EVN forecast a year-on-year rise of 15 percent in power demand and a sharp fall in the water level of large hydropower reservoirs could cause an electricity shortage of up to 1,600-4,900 megawatts in May and June in the country's northern parts.
The state-run utility called on people to save energy, saying saving electricity and using electricity efficiently would be a very important solution to ensure enough electricity during the hot period.
The government has allowed EVN to raise its average retail electricity price by 3 percent after the country's sole electricity distributor said if the price was kept unchanged, its losses would extend to 64 trillion dong (2.7 billion U.S. dollars) this year due to the weakening of the dong currency, increased input costs for coal-fired power production, and rising renewable energy prices. ■
