Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has decided to set up the Steering Board for the nuclear power project in Ninh Thuan province, which is chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai.

Nuclear power and unanswered questions

National Assembly deputies approve nuclear power project

The sketch of Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant in Ninh Thuan province.

The board’s vice chairmen include three Deputy Ministers of Industry and Trade, Science and Technology, Construction, the Chairman of the National Assembly’s Committee for Science-Technology and Environment and the Chairman of Ninh Thuan province.

Other members of the board comprise officials of the Electricity of Vietnam Group, some ministries and Ninh Thuan province.

With the agreement of 77.48 percent of deputies, the National Assembly on November 25, 2009 approved the resolution to construct the first nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan province.

The National Assembly agreed to build two nuclear power plants in Ninh Thuan, with two turbines each supplying power to the national grid. The first plant, named Ninh Thuan 1, will be based in Phuoc Dinh commune, Thuan Nam District while the second one, named Ninh Thuan 2, will be built in Vinh Hai commune, Ninh Hai district, with a capacity of around 2,000 MW each. The capacity of the largest power plant in Vietnam at present, the Hoa Binh hydroelectricity plant, is 1920 MW.

According to the NA’s decision, the two plants will have pressured water reactor technology, the most modern generation of reactors at the time the project was designed.

The estimated funding in late 2008 for the two plants is around 200 trillion dong the construction of the first plant will be kicked off in 2014 and the first turbine will be put into operation in 2020.

The largest investor of the first nuclear power projects is the state power monopoly, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN).

PV