Nghi Son 2 thermal power project gathering steam

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s (MoIT) General Department of Energy, an official investment agreement for the 1,200 megawatt project could be signed by the end of this quarter as procedures have been fulfilled.

The investors behind this $2.3 billion project, located in the central province of Thanh Hoa, is a consortium consisting of Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and South Korea’s Korea Electric Corporation (Kepco).

By July 28, 2011, three tenders including EDF; Marubeni-Kepco; and Suez Tractebel-Mitsui had submitted bid offers for this project. In 2013, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung issued a decision allowing the MoIT to offer Marubeni-Kepco Consortium the build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract.

The consortium of Marubeni-Kepco began construction of the Nghi Son 2 power plant last year, with its first turbine expected to come online in 2019. The plant is projected to be fully operational the following year.

The consortium will operate the thermal power plant for 25 years before handling ownership to the Vietnamese state.

Two Vietnamese firms, Power Engineering Consulting Company 1 (PECC1) and Power Engineering Consulting Company 3 (PECC3), were in charge of the project’s feasibility study.

This project is Marubeni’s first international partnership programme (IPP) business in Vietnam. In addition to supplying power plant facilities, which account for approximately 20 per cent of Vietnam’s total generation capacity, Marubeni intends to expand its IPP business in Vietnam, and take part in the development of power generation facilities to support economic growth, the firm stated in its website.

According to the General Department of Energy, which manages 20 BOT thermal power plants with a total capacity of 24,000 MW nationwide, a series of BOT power projects are scaling up their operations to boost construction this year, ensuring a secure power supply in the future. These plants are among major projects approved under the National Grid Master Plan for 2020.

The list of foreign-invested BOT power projects is set to grow as several foreign companies, including South Korea’s Samsung C&T Corporation, India’s Tata Power, Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries, and Thailand’s EGATI, are currently in negotiations, or are conducting feasibility studies to develop power plants across the country.