Ministry wants ineffective hydropower projects shelved

The Ministry of Industry and Trade has asked provincial governments to rethink small and medium hydropower projects with low cost-effectiveness, and make reports on the progress and environmental impacts of these projects soon.

Do Duc Quan, deputy general director of the ministry’s Energy Department, told the Daily on Wednesday that after looking into these reports, the ministry will suggest provincial governments to scrap those projects that may cause adverse impacts on the environment, especially threats of flooding.

The ministry has earlier proposed provincial authorities to revoke 38 small and medium hydropower projects around the country. Now, the ministry wants cities and provinces to fully weigh negative impacts, especially the possibility of flooding in surrounding areas, before issuing investment licenses for developers.

Recently, the ministry has issued a decision to reduce the size of the reservoir for the 197-MW Dong Nai 8 hydropower project for fear that the project will cause flooding on large forest and agriculture land areas along the Dong Nai River.

He said under the national scheme for development of small and medium hydropower plants, the country would have 890 small and medium hydropower projects with total designed generating capacity of some 5,900MW.

“However, at the moment, only 100 out of the 890 projects have already been developed with total generating capacity of around 600MW,” he said. Quan said the main reason for the slow construction of the projects was the low financial capacity of the investors.

According to Quan, investors have to use up nine hectares of land for generating each megawatt of hydropower, including some 2.4 hectares of forest land.

This means that if almost 900 small and medium hydropower plants in the master plan are constructed, over 2,100 hectares of forest will be lost.