A record in energizing power projects
According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Ninh - Deputy Director of A0, with the incentive mechanism in terms of feed-in tariff issued by the Government, a lot of investors are "racing" to reach the goal of being granted a commercial operation certificate (COD) before June 30, 2019. According to the plan, 88 solar power plants will be integrated into the power system only during the months of April, June and June.
Over 65 years of construction and development of the power industry, a total of 147 power plants with a capacity of 30MW or more per each have been synchronized with the grid and put into operation. But only in three months April, May, June of 2019, it is expected that 88 new power plants will be integrated into the power grid if they meet operation conditions according to regulations. This will be a record in the history of Vietnam’s power industry - Mr. Nguyen Duc Ninh said.
As of the middle of April 2019, there were only 4 solar power plants with a total capacity of less than 150MW in the power system. Up to May 17, 2019, A0 had energized 27 solar power plants with a total of capacity nearly 1,500MW. By June 30, 2019, A0 will continue energizing the remaining 61 projects. As a result, a huge workload is imposed on all levels of load dispatching, when an average of 10 power plants must be energized per week.
As of June 30, 2019, there will be 88 more solar power plant projects being integrated into the national power grid. Photo: illustration
To deal with this "historic" workload, A0 has established a solar power working group to coordinate in dispatching in a consistent and continuous manner. A0 has mobilized their personnel to work in 3 shifts, including 5 teams, and work regardless of weekends and holidays; rotated personnel to support units with high workloads in the South and the Central Regional Load Dispatch Centers.
The National Load Dispatch Center has enhanced the application of information technology, completed and put into use a website to serve the negotiation and signing of technical agreements and power purchase agreements at the address: http://ppa.evn.com.vn/. Thereby, the implementation process has been publicized, the application submission and document processing time required by EVN and their units has been shortened.
In particular, EVN and A0 have actively contacted to and instructed solar power project owners to coordinate in providing documents for commissioning and testing. Every day, A0 receives and exchanges about 5,000 - 6,000 messages with project owners from 6 AM to 12 PM.
In reality, the commissioning, acceptance and recognition of COD of solar power plants has faced many difficulties, due to the fact that many regulations and legal grounds have not been updated in line with the actual extremely rapid progress of solar power project development.
Valued power source but challenging in power system operation
With electricity demand growing at around 10%/year, Vietnam needs to supplement about 3,500 - 4,000MW of new capacity every year. However, in the next 2 years, only about 2,000 - 2,500MW of conventional generation capacity and around 4,000MW of renewable energy with intermittent nature will be added to the system. This fact will cause many difficulties in power system operation to balance supply and demand, and ensure national energy security.
The massive energizing of solar power plants, with the majority located in the South, will contribute to supplementing new capacity, alleviating the power shortage in the South. However, the operation of the national power system will confront new challenges caused by the increasing proportion of intermittent and unstable renewable energy sources.
Operation of the power system will face new challenges when solar power projects are integrated into the grid. Photo: Thanh An
According to A0’s statistics on solar power plant operation, electricity output can vary from 60 to 80% in just 5 -10 minutes. The variations happen randomly subject to weather conditions. Plants in the same area tend to fluctuate simultaneously. Meanwhile, the power system operation always need to sustain a balance between output and load. With such output variation, the power system needs to maintain a certain amount of reserve capacity to correspondingly adjust frequency, which will cause difficulties and increase costs in system operation. This is a big challenge, especially in the context that reserve capacity is very limited in Vietnam's power system.
In addition, renewable energy is undispatchable and can not be mobilized when needed at peak load time. The peak generation time of solar power sources is around 12 AM – 13 PM, not coinciding with the peak load time of the power system (at 10 AM and 14 PM). Another problem is that solar power projects are mainly concentrated in 6 provinces in the Central and the South, putting great pressure on the evacuation of their electricity output. Many grid systems connecting to solar power projects are full-load or overload.
Facing this situation, EVN’s Vice President Ngo Son Hai said that EVN has proposed development of additional power grid projects to the Government. At the same time, EVN has requested its member units to accelerate the construction progress of associated power grid projects, contributing to the capacity evacuation for solar power plants.
EVN has directed A0 to study and propose optimal and flexible operation plans in dispatching power sources, ensuring the power system operation in a safe, uninterrupted and stable manner.