Construction starts on 1.2 GW coal-fired project in Vietnam

Sumitomo Corporation has recently commenced construction in Vietnam on the 1.2 GW Van Phong 1 coal-fired power project in which it is involved through its wholly-owned subsidiary Van Phong Power Company Limited.

Entailing the construction of a new supercritical coal-fired power plant with a generation capacity of 1,320 MW (two 660 MW power-generation units) in the Van Phong Special Economic Zone in Vietnam’s Khanh Hoa Province, the Project is a build-operate-transfer (BOT) power generation project that will sell electricity to Vietnam Electricity (“EVN”), Vietnam’s state-owned power company, over a period of 25 years. Total project costs should reach about JPY 280 billion (USD 2.6 billion), and the plant is scheduled to start commercial operation by the end of 2023.

Vietnam’s electric power demand has risen sharply in line with rapid economic growth, and resolving the serious power shortages expected in the future has become a pressing issue. Under its revised National Power Development Plan VII originally formulated in 2016, the Vietnamese government is striving to meet power demand growing about 10% annually by stepping up its power generation capacity to 96,500 MW by 2025 and to 129,500 MW by 2030.

Climate change issues have now become important social issues, and efforts are being pursued worldwide to expand the use of renewable energies and otherwise alleviate climate change. The Sumitomo Corporation Group has revamped its policies toward climate change issues accordingly. As it works to reliably supply the energy essential to economic and industrial development in local communities, the Group’s power generation business will adopt such approaches as incorporating renewable energy into the Group’s own management resources as part of a sustained shift toward a power generation portfolio with a lower environmental impact. While the Group’s general policy is to refrain from building new coal-fired power plants, it has decided to make case-by-case assessments of projects deemed essential for the economic and industrial development of local communities that conform to policies established by Japan and the host country with due consideration for international efforts and trends toward mitigating climate change, and it was on this basis that this project was undertaken.

Sumitomo Corporation remains committed to dependably supplying the energy vital to economic and industrial development in Vietnam and to helping improve living standards and resolve power shortages in Vietnam.