Vietnam agrees to supply additional power

03 September 2010
by Chun Sophal
Phnom Penh Post

CAMBODIAN officials said yesterday that Vietnam would supply another 30 megawatts of power to the Kingdom in response to an appeal from Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Suy Sem, minister of the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, said yesterday: “We are negotiating with Vietnamese officials and we hope that the additional power supply will be provided no later than the end of this year.”

According to a power-purchasing agreement signed in 2001, Vietnam agreed to supply 200 megawatts of power annually to Cambodia from 2009 – but it has fallen short of the target and supplied only 100 megawatts by March this year.

That prompted Hun Sen to call for Vietnam to supply 50 megawatts more as energy demand rose quickly.

In June this year, Vietnam supplied 20 megawatts more, but Cambodia insisted that the supply was still not enough.

Suy Sem said that power supply in Phnom Penh’s city centre met demand, but that suburban areas had not yet had access to additional power.

“We will use the newly obtained electricity to expand our power-distribution network to Phnom Penh’s suburbs, which at present do not have access,” said Suy Sem.

Phnom Penh, at the moment, consumes 300 megawatts a year. About 40 percent is drawn from Vietnam.

According to the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, energy demand increases from 25 to 30 percent every year.

Ty Thany, director of the Department of Finance and Electricity Price Setting at the Electricity Authority of Cambodia, said that the new power bought from Vietnam was only meeting demand, so electricity prices would not change.

He told customers to expect price change only when all the hydroelectricity dams planned for Cambodia were finished. The dams will be finished between 2011 and 2016.