Mr. Vo Quang Lam – Deputy General Director of EVN on behalf of the Group receiving the award for Vietnam Excellent Digital Transformation Enterprise 2019 - Photo: Minh Hanh
Digitizing all activities
Currently, the units of EVN have put many modern equipment and technologies into management and operation of the power system. Typically, 100% of medium voltage grid and 100% of 110kV substation of Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation are monitored and controlled remotely; application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the National Power Transmission Corporation to test power lines; application of artificial intelligence (chatbot) in customer care and hotline repair of power corporations; etc.
Until now, EVN has remotely controlled 599/810 20-110kV substations (accounting for 74% of total); thereby, the number of on-site staff at 403 substations (accounting for 50% of the total) is reduced, which improves labour productivity effectively.
In addition, the Outage Management System (OMS), digital power purchase contracts, SCADA/EMS/MMS software, automatic control of AGC units in dispatch centers, hydrological monitoring systems for hydropower plants, online environmental monitoring system in thermal power plants, etc., have been bringing high efficiency.
Customers of the Southern Power Corporation can publicly rate the quality and attitude of transaction staff on the software system installed at the Customer Transaction Office – Photo: H.Hoa
Specially, for many recent years, EVN has been proactively involved in digital transformation in a comprehensive manner with high determination to contribute to promoting the process of national digital transformation. Typically, EVN was one of the pioneers in deploying electronic office (E-Office) from 20 years ago. Up to now, 100% of EVN’s units have used the E-Office system to handle issues. EVN has digitally signed electronic documents throughout the Group, with the current result that 95% of documents in the Group are circulated electronically.
In 2013, EVN was the first unit in the country to issue electronic invoices on a large scale. The issuance of electronic invoices has not only modernized and drastically changed EVN’s business operations but also contributed to paving the way for electronic payment methods and electronic transactions on the network between EVN and customers.
Although EVN is not a public administrative agency, since 2013, electricity services have been provided by EVN equivalent to online public services at level 1 and by 2018, it was equivalent to level 4 – the highest level of public services. The transactions between customers and EVN, from the stage of service request to the stage of signing of contract and making payment, are performed online via technology platform. In 2019, EVN aims to provide electrical services to customers by electronic transactions.
In particular, EVN has upgraded and uniformly implemented the software systems to serve the business and supply of electricity services; upgrading customer care website, connecting to public administrative centers and online public service portal of 63 provinces/cities, ensuring the publicity and transparency as well as create favourable conditions for customers in facilitating access to electrical services.
Practical effect
The strong application of science and technology has played an important role in modernizing and improving the efficiency of production and business activities of the Group to satisfy power customers. This result is clearly demonstrated through figures such as: The rate of power loss in 2018 has decreased to 6.83%, a decrease of 0.41% compared to 2017’s. Labour productivity of production and business activities of the Group increased by over 10% annually; particularly, since 2016, it has gained an increase of over 11%.
Remote control center of Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation has function of controlling the entire electrical grid of the city remotely – Photo: H.Hoa
The implementation of a strong and right digital transformation has created a great boost for EVN, maximizing utility in services for power users. The customer satisfaction with the Power industry is increasingly on rise. If in 2013, the evaluation results of power customers’ satisfaction by independent organizations showed that EVN only reached 6.45/10 points, by 2018 it reached 8.11/10 points.
The efforts made by EVN have been recognized by domestic and international organizations. In 2018, Vietnam’s access-to-electricity index was ranked by Doing Business - World Bank at 27/190 countries in the world and Top 4 ASEAN. In 2019, EVN with its subsidiaries were honored by the Vietnam Digital Communications Association as the Excellent Digital Transformation Enterprise of Vietnam 2019.
Currently, the Group has approved the Project “Technology research, development and application of Industrial Revolution 4.0 in production and business activities of EVN”. In particular, the Group has approved and assigned units to implement 36 projects with the goal of building EVN into a digital enterprise based on technology application of Industry Revolution 4.0 and gradually helping EVN become one of the leading Groups in the region.