According to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, in the first months of 2020, the water flow in river basins throughout the country will be in shortage of 20-50% compared with the average level in many years.
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh, presiding over the meeting
According to the forecast, the total hydropower output of the whole system in the 6 months of the dry season of 2020 is expected to decrease by 4.2 TWh, Deputy General Director of EVN Ngo Son Hai said. Therefore, to ensure power supply, EVN needs to increase coal thermal power output by 2.96 TWh. At the same time, it is required to increase the output from high-cost oil-fired power plants by 1.52 TWh, increasing the total output from oil-fired power plants in the year to 4.67 TWh. This will the highest figure ever recorded, which may cause many difficulties for EVN in power supply.
Therefore, in order to ensure the balance of benefits between downstream water supply according to the inter-reservoir process and power supply for socio-economic development, EVN proposed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to consider the situation and allow a number of hydroelectric reservoirs to maintain a minimum water level lower than the requirement limit according to the inter-reservoir operating procedure; while giving priority to solving technical issues of the power system in reservoir operation, controlling the amount of water supplied to the downstream in accordance with the actual needs of localities or occasionally lower than the required limit in hydropower reservoirs facing water shortage.
Giving instructions to the conference, Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh said that 2020 is predicted to be a year with serious drought. EVN needs to coordinate with relevant ministries, branches and localities to prepare a plan of a balanced operation of reservoirs, ensuring multi-objective optimization, both in downstream water supply and power supply.
The Deputy Minister requested the Department of Water Resources Management to coordinate with the relevant units and take timely measures to deal with the serious water shortage in the areas such as Da Nang, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan, etc.