The Son La hydropower plant, developed by Electricity of VietNam (EVN), welcomed its first Tet in February 2013, after being connected to the National Power Grid in December 2012. The plant created a history of sorts when it was commissioned in December, three years ahead of schedule. The construction of this plant that has a capacity of 2,400 MW constitutes an important milestone for Vietnam’s power sector: it is the largest plant in the country and Southeast Asia.
The project’s success can be largely attributed to support from government authorities and local residents. The project involved the designing, monitoring, and construction of the main dam in the Muong La district. Therefore, it required the approvals of ministries and local authorities, including for resettlement projects to free up land for the development of the plant and assistance to build roads to avoid flooding. The formation of the State Steering Committee, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, was a major step in ensuring effective implementation of the project.
Further, the success of the project highlights Vietnamese engineers’ technical expertise in determining the location and design of the dam, the number of turbines, and other parameters. The decision to use six turbines of 400 MW capacity each, instead of eight to 10 smaller turbines of lower capacity, has resulted in high productivity and economic efficiency. The dam’s design that employs roller-compacted concrete and a domestically manufactured super weight crane system also contributed to the timely completion of the plant. Finally, local residents played an indispensable role in the project’s success: over 20,000 households in the Son La, Dien Bien, and Lai Chau provinces voluntarily relocated in order to free up land for the plant.
The plant’s designed annual electricity output is more than 10 billion kWh, around 10 per cent of the country’s total output. The commissioning of the plant has helped EVN save over 40 trillion dong.
