Notice No. 91/TB-VPCP on conclusions at the meeting on the National Power Development Plan for the period of 2021 - 2030

NOTICE
On conclusions of Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh at the meeting on the National Power Development Plan VIII for the period of 2021 – 2030 with the vision to 2045 (Power Development Plan 8)

On April 23, 2021, at the headquarters of the Government, Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh chaired a meeting on the National Power Development Plan VII for the period of 2021 – 2030 with the vision to 2045 (Power Development Plan 8). The meeting saw the participation of representatives from ministries and agencies: Industry and Trade, Planning and Investment, Finance, Natural Resources and Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development, and the Government Office; representative leaders of the Vietnam Electricity, the Vietnam Energy Association, the Vietnam Electricity Association, the Institute of Energy. After listening to reports delivered by leaders of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and speeches of the representatives of the agencies at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh concluded the meeting as follows:

1. The Power Development Plan 8 plays a particularly important role in the national sector masterplan system, which is specially directed by the Prime Minister, required to be completed as soon as possible with the best quality, ensuring firm energy security, creating an infrastructure foundation for the comprehensive socio-economic development of the country.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade drafted, studied, and consulted various relevant agencies and units to basically complete the Power Development Plan 8 in line with the approved planning task. The Appraisal Council for the Power Development Plan 8 also assessed and presented the report on the assessment of the draft Power Development Plan 8 to the Prime Minister in accordance with law provisions (Document No. 18/BC-BCT dated March 26, 2021). The Ministry of Industry and Trade also completed and submitted the draft Power Development Plan 8 to the Prime Minister for consideration and approval (Report No. 1682/TTr -BCT dated March 26, 2021).

2. In the context that other relevant national sector masterplans are being comprehensively finalized, the Prime Minister (in Document No. 2020/VPCP-CN dated March 26, 2021 issued by the Government Office) required great importance attached to completing the draft Power Development Plan 8 with the best quality in a well-organized, scientific and efficient manner, ensuring sufficient electricity for the country's development; to studying and collecting comments from the concerned ministries, sectors and agencies on the draft masterplan and carrying out the appraisal procedures in accordance with the law provisions on planning. After the Ministry of Industry and Trade submitted it to the Prime Minister, the Vietnam Electricity, as the mainstay of the power sector, had more comments on the draft decision approving the masterplan (Document No. 1645/EVN-KH dated April 2, 2021). Therefore, the continued research and completion of the Power Development Plan 8 is necessary with the aim of achieving the best quality, developing the electricity sector sustainably, improving the country’s energy autonomy, determining the scale of reasonable development of the national electricity system over time in order to have the most reasonable electricity selling price and raising high competitiveness of the economy.

3. The Ministry of Industry and Trade shall study and collect the opinions of the attendants to the meeting in order to complete the Power Development Plan 8, in which the following contents shall be carefully considered:

- Further reviewing and carefully assessing the current state of the national power system capacity; maximum power supply capacity in the presence and absence of constraints on the power transmission of existing sources in the system.

- Carefully and comprehensively reviewing the list of sources and power grids included in the revised Power Development Plan 7 (including the list officially added by the competent authority); carefully analyzing the progress of ongoing investment projects to serve as a basis for balancing and calculating the Power Development Plan 8 appropriately.

- Reviewing the scale of power source development, the appropriate power source structure compared with the forecast of electricity demand in each period, especially the period up to 2030; not allowing unreasonable power supply redundancy (for example, making the plan to develop the total capacity of 167,000 MW of electricity by 2030 while the forecast for maximum capacity demand under the base case is 86,500 MW). Specifically, strictly comply with Vietnam’s National Energy Development Strategy to 2030 with vision to 2045 promulgated in Resolution 55-NQ / TW dated February 11, 2020 of the Politburo, especially the development targets of renewable energy and LNG gas power sources.

- Supplementing and considering provisions on criteria for important and prioritized projects in the masterplan over time; reviewing the scale and rational allocation of development space for power sources, especially LNG sources in the Power Development Plan, ensuring optimal and competitive advantages in electricity system development.

- Studying to further improve legal and policy approaches as well as organizing and supervising the implementation of the masterplan to overcome weaknesses in the implementation of Power Development Plan 8, especially while changing from detailed masterplan to orientation masterplan in the Power Development Plan 8.

- Uphold the spirit of decentralization and authorization associated with the responsibility of supervising and controlling power in the process of implementing the masterplan. Therefore, the law provisions on elaborating and implementing the Power Development Plan 8 shall be reviewed in order to ensure transparency and accountability in accordance with the law provisions on planning.

- Reviewing the law provisions on the agency in charge of building a bidding mechanism to select investors for power projects in compliance with the tasks assigned by the Government in Resolution 140/NQ-CP dated on October 20, 2020.

- Clarifying the relationship of power source and grid development between the Power Development Plan 8 and other provincial-level masterplans being formulated by local authorities.

- Further considering the handling of the Kien Luong Power Center following the directions of the Prime Minister.

- Studying and observing specific comments from the Vietnam Electricity stated in Document No. 1645/EVN-KH dated April 2, 2021, in which the separation of the list of planned power sources shall be studied and continue to develop in order to ensure publicity and transparency; at the same time, the list and structure of transmission grids should also be reviewed ton ensure suitability. 

4. By researching and observing the abovementioned contents in the Section 3 and completing the Power Development Plan 8, the Ministry of Industry and Trade shall collect more comments from relevant ministries, sectors, and agencies on the draft Decision approving the Power Development Plan, finalize the dossier and submit it to the Prime Minister before June 15, 2021.

The Government Office hereby informs the Ministry of Industry and Trade, relevant ministries and agencies of the Deputy Prime Minister’s conclusions in order to implement them./.