Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Blame it on the rain

Power shortage in the winter: blame it on the lack of water. Power shortage in the summer: blame it on low rainfalls.
It seems like the weather is now completely responsible for every power cut in the country.

State-owned Electricity of Vietnam earlier this month promised that the current power shortage would ease beginning in mid-June. But the power monopoly did not forget to throw in an “only if”, saying that it will only happen if rainfalls are plentiful and there are small floods.

Isn’t it kind of funny that the energy security of a nation has to depend on something as volatile as the weather? Power shortages have been an ongoing problem for many years, but the power sector is always innocent. The weather is the one to blame for everything.

But the fact is, however, our power shortage is the result of bad planning and a lack of vision.

The main sources of power in Vietnam are hydro and thermal power plants. Hydroelectricity is dependent on weather conditions while coal supplies for thermal power plants will run out someday – the country has already made plans for coal imports. So one way or another the power problem can only be solved when alternative energy sources are developed.

When proposals to produce wind power were made in the early 1990s, they were not supported because many people said it would be too expensive. But wind power development in many countries has proved this prejudice wrong. Wind power technology becomes cheaper every year and is not expensive compared with hydroelectricity, not to mention the environmental benefits.

Vietnam has a coastline of 3,200 kilometers and is considered to have the best potential for wind power production in Southeast Asia.

Of course it requires a lot of work to tap this potential, but it will be a huge waste if the country does not take wind power development seriously enough to solve the power shortage problem.
By An Nguyen