Vietnam's hydropower plant investors lament of lack of capital

Vietnam's small and medium scaled hydropower plant projects with the designed capacity of less than 30 MW have not pushed through because of lack of capital.

According to Do Duc Quan, Deputy Director of the Energy Department, since investors of the hydropower plants still cannot arrange sufficient capital, they have to offer the projects for sale, when the construction has not been started yet.He added that even the half-done plants have also been put on sale by the investors in an effort to stop loss.

According to Quan, there are nearly 200 small and medium scaled hydropower projects which have got the approval from competent agencies. However, only 20 percent of them have been implemented.

While investors can borrow money from banks, the overly high commercial interest rates, which would lead to the low profitability of the projects, have discouraged a lot of investors.

“A lot of hydropower investors in the northern province of Cao Bang have said they want to transfer the projects due to the lack of capital,” Quan said.


“Small and medium scaled hydropower plants can only churn out 2-3 percent of the total electricity volume needed by the whole country. However, if the projects cannot be implemented or slow in implementation, this will seriously affect the electricity supply to the national grid,” Quan has warned.

Nguyen Van Nha, Deputy General Director of the Vietnam-Laos Economic Cooperation Joint Stock Company in Nghe An province said on October 28, that due to the financial problems, the company has decided to halt the implementation of the two projects – My Ly and Nam Mo 1.