Citing the high cost of construction and slower than expected demand growth for electricity, officials in Vietnam are saying that the government has plans to back out of contracts with Russian and Japanese companies to build two nuclear power plants that were approved in 2009.
The fate of the plants has gone up and down. Construction was to start in 2014, but it was postponed with the new start date set at 2020. Media reports on Sunday quoted officials as saying the contracts for two plants with a combined capacity of 4,000 megawatts would be canceled, a story that was confirmed Thursday by state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre.
The newspaper reported that the plan to cancel would be sent to the National Assembly. It also quoted the head of the state-controlled Electricity of Vietnam Group Duong Quang Thanh as saying that imported energy had become cheaper and, therefore, more attractive as an option to handle demand growth, which had previously been predicted to rise at a rate of 17-20 percent per year. The current government estimate sees demand rising 11 percent from 2016 through 2020 and by 7-8 percent from 2021 through 2030.
“Currently, power demand growth is not high, while domestically generated and imported sources of energy are sufficient for social-economic development,” said Duong Quang Thanh, as quoted in the Associated Press.