The sympathy for EVN is increasingly greater
According to economic expert, Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong, in recent years, EVN has really “overcome itself”. In particular, it was necessary to mention on Vietnam's access-to-electricity index which has been currently ranked at 27/190 countries/economies, higher than that of some OECD countries – the most developed nations in the world.
The provision of online electricity services corresponding to level-4 public services was implemented at the end of 2018. This shows the proactive innovation of the Group in its businesses and customer services, bringing many utilities and convenience for power users.
Having the same opinion, Dr. Can Van Luc also said that EVN has achieved great outcomes in the past 5 - 7 years, shown in many aspects such as: Dramatically reducing power loss, rapidly increasing electricity access index; electrical work in rural areas has become a model in the world, etc.
The strongest impression upon Dr. Ngo Tri Long is the remarkably improved power quality. Customers are provided with an uninterrupted, safe and stable power supply. In case of incidents, just a call is made for requiring staffs to promptly appear at site and solve the problem.
As a member of EVN’s multidiscipline delegation group who inspects production cost price of power in recent years, Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung - Chairman of Vietnam Consumer Protection Association, said currently, consumers' complaints against Power units have been significantly decreased in comparison to that of the previous time. The service quality has been improved, the time of power outage has been sharply decreased, all the corporations under EVN had professional Customer Care Centres. The Group was then also one of the leading units in applying science and technology.
Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh stated that EVN's achievements were undeniable. He was impressed by the great reduction made by EVN in its production costs through applying science and technology such as: Remote reading electronic meters, electricity bill collection through banks, access-to-electricity access, etc.
Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan - EVN General Director giving speech at work session
For EVN to do better…
According to economic expert Pham Chi Lan, currently Vietnam was still subsidizing power price, so many enterprises were applying obsolete technologies which intensively consume power, particularly in the iron and steel production sector. Therefore, Vietnam should abrogate its policy on power price subsidy, accepting higher one to boost the development of renewable energy and the green one. Besides, it is necessary to promote the power saving awareness, as the Power sector was carrying a burden for the other sectors that consume massive amounts of power.
“Japan needs just 1 power unit for 1 GDP, meanwhile Vietnam needs 2 power units for 1 GDP, such an awful waste,” said economic expert Pham Chi Lan.
From 2019, EVN would face many difficulties, because of lacking standby power source and the fact that not many new power sources would be put in operation in the coming years. To ensure sufficient power supply for socio-economic development and the people's living activities was the responsibility not only of EVN, but also of other power suppliers, said Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, Head of Central Institute for Economic Management.
Currently, the Group had owned about 60% of power sources of the entire system, including its equitized enterprises. Therefore, in order to relieve the tension of power supply source in the coming period, the State needed to adjust and change its policy on power prices to attract private investors into this field; at the same time, creat motivation for production enterprises to economically and efficiently use power, recommended Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung.
Agreeing with the view of Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, Dr. Vu Dinh Anh added that assuming Vietnam’s Power sector was a body, EVN would be the backbone, but it did not mean that EVN had to take full responsibility for that body. EVN was responsible for ensuring power supply, but the Group was fully responsible for transmission and distribution only, the responsibility of generating power should be taken by not only EVN but also other enterprises and investors, etc.
Besides, some experts also expressed their sympathy with the specific characteristics of EVN. According to Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, the Group was currently “burdened” with many responsibilities not subject to an enterprise, such as supplying power to remote areas with large costs but the actual power demand in these areas is often low.
At the same time, the experts said that EVN needed to recommend the State to adopt a policy on reasonable power price to develop renewable energy in different areas across the country, avoiding investors from focusing on the same area, which causes overload on the power grid; develop mechanisms on the sectors consuming a lot of power in order to encourage enterprises to economically and efficiently use power, particularly in the field of manufacturing iron, steel, cement, etc.
EVN has been strongly applying science and technologies to all of its production and business activities to improve labour productivity, reduce management and operation costs.
Impressive numbers
Discussing with experts, Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan - General Director of EVN said that in 2018, the commercial power output of the Group reached 193 billion kWh, an increase of 10.14% compared to that of 2017; this was a high growth rate compared to that of other countries in the region.
“Particularly, in 2013, while Vietnam's access-to-electricity index was ranked at 157/190 countries/economies, in 2018, Vietnam reached the rank of 27/190 countries and economies in the world, achieving the goal of entering in Top 4 of ASEAN two years ahead of the target set by the Government.
The power loss index of EVN has also strongly reduced, from 10.15% (in 2010) to 6.83%, ranked at 3rd in ASEAN and higher than many developed countries such as England, Portugal, Spain, etc.
In recent years, EVN has also promoted the application of science and technology into its production and business activities such as: Automation of the power grid; remote control, unmanned substations; application of electronic meters, etc. Thereby, it has contributed to improving its production and business performance and increased labour productivity of the Group at the same time. Since 2013, EVN has not recruited more employees, with an average increase in labour productivity of 11% per year.
EVN and its subsidiaries also synchronously implement solutions to manage businesses and control cost efficiency with regularly reducing and saving costs on average of 7.5% per year.
Acquiring valuable contributions of the senior experts, Mr. Tran Dinh Nhan hoped that, in the coming period, EVN would continue to receive more constructive opinions from experts in term of orienting its development, for the Group to continue its sustainable development, stable, reliable power supply with high quality for the economy.