Lai Chau hydel plant to generate power by 2017

Lai Chau hydroelectric plant will be completed by 2016 and start generating power by 2017.

This was announced by Nguyen Dinh Thao, deputy head of Son La-Lai Chau Hydropower Plant project management unit under Vietnam Electricity.

Apart from power, the plant will provide water to agriculutural areas in the Red River Delta during the dry season.

Costing VDN35.7 trillion, the plant kicked off construction in January last year. With three generators and a designed capacity of 1,200 MW, it will provide an annual electricity output of around 4.7 billion kWh.

Situated on the upstream of Da River, the plant’s reservoir can store 1.2 billion cubic meters of water and the biggest dam is 120 meters high. Lai Chau Province authorities have resettled over 2,000 households to make room for the plant.

There are three hydropower plants on Da River, namely Hoa Binh, Son La and Lai Chau with designed capacity of 1,920MW, 2,400MW and 1,200MW respectively. They generate a combined power output of 25 kWh annually.

With capacity of 400MW, the fifth generator of Son La hydropower plant is set to merge the national grid by the month-end. Four out of six generators of the plant have become operational as of now.

The ministry suggested hydropower plants must stick to regulating plans in an attempt to satisfy domestic power demand during the dry season. Hydroelectric dams must retain current water levels to serve as a back-up for power generation until the end of the dry season.

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