9 May 2006 - Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) says it is planning to buy an additional 200 MW of electricity from China between 2007 to 2010 to meet an anticipated power shortfall.

Under the proposal, power is to be transferred from China's Yunnan Province to the northern province of Thai Nguyen via a 500-km 220 kV transmission line, it said.

In 2004 Vietnam signed contracts to buy 160 MW of electricity from China to supply the northern provinces of Ha Giang and Tuyen Quang.

The project will help Vietnam meet its power generation target in 2010, when total annual power output is scheduled to double to 110 billion kWh.

According to the Ministry of Industry, electricity demand is forecast to grow 15 to 16 per cent per year until 2010. The country buys power from China to prevent shortages in the north, and plans to begin purchasing electricity from Laos in
2008, it said. Vietnam now has a total production capacity of 11 GW, mostly generated by coal-fired and hydroelectric plants.

The Government recently issued an energy use master plan, which anticipates a total generational capacity of 41 GW by 2020.

Vietnam plans to complete its first nuclear power plant by 2020 as an alternative means of meeting growing power demand. In December 2004, the Ministry of Science and Technology submitted to the Government a pre-feasibility study for a 2000 MW nuclear plant.