Thursday, September 30, 2010

HCM City: Hundreds of residential areas face power cuts

VietNamNet Bridge – The HCM City Power Corporation has announced electricity cuts of 30 minutes to five hours in 300 residential areas from September 29 to October 5.

The power cuts will be mainly from 8am to 1pm or from 9am to 2pm. In some areas in 50 wards and communes, electricity will be cut off at night for 30 to 90 minutes. Some residential areas in Binh Chanh, Cu Chi and Thu Duc will endure power outages several times next week.

HCM City Power Corporation explained that it would cut power to repair its transmission lines and also because of the power shortage.

“If the source of supply is in shortage, the system will automatically cut off power. We can’t control it and don’t know which areas will be out of power beforehand,” admitted Nguyen Anh Vu, the corporation’s chief of Public Relations Department.

Another official from HCM City Power Corporation commented that, since it is the rainy season, electricity consumption has lowered, but there is still a power shortage. Recently, some residential areas in HCM City had blackouts 7-9 times a day or every evening of the last month.

The corporation confirmed that power outages in HCM City have no relation to Hanoi’s 1000thanniversary. The shortages are mainly caused by the repair and overhaul of some thermo-electric plants and unfixed incidents at some turbines of Hai Phong, Quang Ninh and Cam Pha thermo-power plants. Water levels at reservoirs are also lower than the average of previous years.

While some provinces are suffering power cuts, more electric lights are being hung on Hanoi streets. An official from the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed the Prime Minister’s instruction on power thrift is still effective, but Hanoi had priority to Hanoi because the city will celebrate its 1000th anniversary, a great cultural and political event for Vietnam.

According to Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN), Hanoi uses around 30 million kWh a day. The output for HCM City is up to 43 million kWh per day while it is only 16.2 million kWh a day for the central region, including 3.6 million kWh a day for Da Nang city.

EVN confirmed priority for Hanoi during its great anniversary. However, a deputy general director of EVN told the press that it is unreasonable when many places are dark and yet some Hanoi streets have up to four lines of electric lights.

EVN has asked the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Vietnam to issue international bonds worth $1 billion to have reciprocal capital for its thermo-electric projects. It also asked related ministries to approve its scheme early to issue 5 trillion dong ($263 million) domestic bonds to have capital for some power projects.

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