UPDATED 1 Sept: The EI library in London is temporarily closed to the public, as a precautionary measure in light of the ongoing COVID-19 situation. The Knowledge Service will still be answering email queries via email , or via live chats during working hours (09:15-17:00 GMT). Our e-library is always open for members here: eLibrary , for full-text access to over 200 e-books and millions of articles. Thank you for your patience.
New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Contentious role for Vietnam’s new Vung Ang II thermal power plant
18/1/2023
News
The new Vung Ang II coal-fired thermal power plant, the largest in central Vietnam, is to play a key role in supplying power to a country with growing demand, especially in its industrial sector, when it comes onstream in 2024.
Located in Vietnam’s Ha Tinh Province, next to the Vung Ang I facility that is already in operation, the new plant is a joint engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project between Doosan Heavy Industries and Samsung E&C, with a total investment of $2.2bn. It will feature two ultra-supercritical coal-fired generators that are claimed to be the ‘most efficient and environmentally friendly in their class’, with a total output of 1,330 MW. The plant will serve as an energy source for the nearby Formosa steel plant.
Construction of the Vung Ang II facility is part of the government’s ‘Power Development Master Plan VII’, which envisages that Vietnam will continue to produce approximately 50% of its energy through thermal power plants up to 2030, as a way of meeting the growing demand of a country with more than 100mn inhabitants. The plan calls for at least 83 thermal power plants to produce about 55 GW of electricity to sustain the entire grid.
The government’s strategy to increase coal consumption flies in the face of its November 2021 climate pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, seen by many as ‘ambitious’ for a developing economy. Indeed, the government has yet to outline how it plans to steer the country towards this carbon neutrality target.
Vietnam is heavily reliant on coal as a power source and will find challenging any ‘phase down’ in its use, as will other nations such as Indonesia, Mongolia, China, India and South Africa, according to the International Energy Agency. Indeed, China and India were instrumental in having the wording in the initial COP26 agreement in 2021 changed from a proposed commitment to ‘phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies’, to a move away from ‘inefficient’ subsidies and ‘unabated coal power’ (ie without carbon capture and storage), and further watered down to a ‘phase down’ of coal in the final agreement. Coal remains a contentious issue and little progress was made at COP27 at the end of 2022, with no follow-through on the phase down of coal included in the Summit’s final over-arching agreement.
