Officially coming into operation from July 1, 2012, up to now, the competitive generation market has experienced more than 6 years of operation. According to Vice Minister Hoang Quoc Vuong, the power system has operated safely and reliably, supplying sufficient electricity for socio-economic development.
The leader of Ministry of Industry and Trade has affirmed that the operation of competitive generation market has improved the transparency and fairness in dispatching power plants through price offers. Power plants offering low prices will be dispatched first, then comes to those offering higher prices, until satisfying load demand.
Power generating organizations have better awareness of the importance and activeness of operation, shortening maintenance time, reducing operating costs, proactively offering prices in order to improve their performance and operation efficiency, contributing to improving the overall efficiency of the whole system.
To date, the number of power plants participating in the market is 87 plants with a total installed capacity of 22,946MW, 2.8 times higher than that in the initial operation time of the market (with 31 plants only).
Vice Minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong addressed at the meeting on October 8, 2018 in Ha Noi
Together with strengthening and developing the competitive generation market, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has been leading and coordinating with concerned agencies and organizations to study and prepare for the competitive wholesale electricity market in accordance with the roadmap approved by the Prime Minister.
According to the roadmap, the competitive wholesale electricity market will be officially launched from 2019. Vice Minister Hoang Quoc Vuong has requested concerned organizations to focus on well completing the pilot operation period in the last months of 2018; finalizing the draft circular regulating the operation of competitive wholesale electricity market to submit to the Ministry's leadership for approval; at the same time, aggressively promoting improvement of the IT infrastructure as well as keeping on the human resource training for member units to meet operation requirements of the electricity market.
According to a representative of the Electricity Regulatory Authority, so far 99% (633/639) of metering points within the boundaries have been remotely and automatically acquired by the National Load Dispatch Center serving the pilot operation of competitive wholesale electricity market; the quality of metering data has been gradually improved; the declaration, cross-checking and verification of metering data has been step by step performed systematically and basically meeting the requirements.
However, according to the representative of the Electricity Regulatory Authority, the verification of metering data by Power Corporations needs additional time because of very large amount of metering data. In addition, the verification of output of remote power plants is slow due to difficulty in data collection. This results in 2 - 3 day delays in daily statement verification behind the time schedule as per current regulations.
In addition, the new IT infrastructure merely meets basic requirements, the SCADA system is incomplete, hindering the forecast, planning and monitoring of electricity market.
At present, EVN has developed scenarios and plans to ensure both electricity market operation and national energy security.