Vietnam’s new hydropower stature

December 23, 2012 marks a milestone in the history of the Son La Hydropower Plant as the day it officially began operations three years ahead of schedule. It is the largest hydropower plant in the country and Southeast Asia, and also the largest of its kind designed and built by Vietnamese engineers.

The key factor that contributed to the timely completion three years ahead of schedule was the harmonious co-ordination in each phase of implementation.

Aside from the core task of designing, monitoring and constructing the main dam for the plant in Son La province’s Muong La district that Vietnam Electricity (EVN) is responsible for, there were other component projects that required relevant ministries and local authorities’ competency to carry out, including resettlement projects to free up land for the plant being deployed by the People’s Committees of Son La, Dien Bien and Lai Chau provinces, and the Ministry of Transport’s project to build routes to avoid flooding when the hydroelectric lake began hoarding water.

For this reason, hundreds of work sites operated simultaneously at times on the whole of Vietnam’s northwest, in addition to the main site in Muong La. The accordant co-operation among the project’s components was ensured through the consistent and effective direction from a united commission. This proves that the establishment of the State Steering Committee for the project, which was headed by a Deputy Prime Minister, was a sound decision.

The success of the project allows Vietnam to be more confident in its own internal forces, particularly when handling technical issues. For example, there was strong opposition at first to the architects’ choice in selecting the position to locate the dam, deciding the number of turbines, and changing the design of the dam.

However, the change in the location of the dam saves hundreds of billions of Vietnam dong and came with a trade-off of relocating about 10,000 local residents in the Muong La district and the change also helps the Muong La town from being inundated under water. The use of six turbines with capacity of 400MW each instead of eight to ten smaller turbines with lower capacity brings the highest productivity and economic efficiency to the plant. The change in the dam’s design to using roller-compacted concrete (RCC), the domestic manufacture of the 1,200 tonne super weight crane system, among others, contributed to pushing the completion of the plant three years ahead of the target set by the National Assembly.

Many of the labourers who were working on the site had participated in other large-scale hydropower projects, including Hoa Binh, Tri An, and Yaly. The difference in the Son La project was that Vietnamese workers undertook all the work by themselves, and were not depending on foreign partner as in the other projects. Yet, all the work at the site, from dam construction using millions of m3 of RCC material that were carried out in Vietnam for the first time, in convoys of super long and super heavy equipment to the site in unfavourable mountainous transport conditions, and the installation of the six turbines weighing thousands of tonnes, had been carried out safely and precisely. The completion of the biggest hydropower plant in Southeast Asia with its dam listed as one of the top ten largest dams in the world is a significant achievement and an honour for the Vietnamese workers.

Local residents played an indispensable part in the success of the project. Over 20,000 households in Son La, Dien Bien, and Lai Chau provinces voluntarily relocated to free up land for the plant. Despite the difficulties and challenges ahead; in the remote mountainous areas with limited farm land, the beginning of a new way of life is emerging signalling those local authorities’ efforts and great sacrifices from the local people are commendable.

Currently, nearly 400 young engineers are responsible for ensuring the efficient operation of the 2,400MW plant. Modern technologies and equipment is key to facilitate human activities, however, skills and knowledge of operators are required to master them.

Son La Hydropower plant, which was completed after five years of construction, will provide the national grid with over 10 billion kWh of electricity each year. Under current average power selling price of VND1,437 per kWh, the plant will have an annual turnover of VND14 trillion. Thus, the facility becoming operational three years ahead of schedule helps save over VND40 trillion. That was the reason the Government decided to double investment for resettlement programmes to stabilise the lives for displaced people, which in turn will contribute to ensuring power security and facilitating national socio-economic development.

The project inauguration also helps the 1,920MW Hoa Binh Hydropower plant increase its annual designed output from 8 billion kWh to 11 billion kWh. The most important thing is that the Son La facility, along with Hoa Binh and Tuyen Quang plants, can help provide more water in the dry season for the lowlands and ease flooding in Hanoi during the next 500 years.

From the success of self-designing, self-managing and self-constructing the Son La project, EVN earned the confidence from the Government to become the main investor for Lai Chau Hydropower plant which is expected to be completed in 2017. Workers, who had spared no effort for the completion of the Son La project, were entrusted to continue their new tasks on the last hydroelectric power plant built on the Da River. On these Spring days, they are taking joy and pride from Son La project along to lighten up Vietnam’s diligence, intelligence and creativity in the new project.

https://talkvietnam.com/2013/02/vietnams-new-hydropower-stature/#.URZITfJCSho