In early June 2023, Nghe An districts and towns were "immersed" in hot weather, with temperatures constantly rising. Power outages occurred continuously in many places. Frequent power outages have seriously affected daily life, production and business. Especially at the time when final year high school students entered the "final" days of exam preparation; power outages and rotating power cuts have greatly affected their review.
In Quy Chau district in June 2023, nearly 500 12th grade students of Quy Chau High School were in the period of intensive review for graduation exams and university and college entrance exams. At a small 5-room dormitory in Tan Lac town, Vi Thi Thanh and 3 female classmates brought mats and tables to the dormitory yard every night and used the light from their phones to review their lessons. Thanh said that the electricity was constantly out, sometimes all day, or from early evening until morning, so they had to use the light from flashlights or phones to review their lessons.
Not only the students, but also the daily life of local people are also greatly disrupted by the power shortage. In Hamlet 1, Nghi Van Commune, Nghi Loc District, along the flat asphalt road running through the commune center, around 10:30 am there are very few people passing by. Mrs. Che Thi Minh (70 years old), whose house is right next to the asphalt road, the sun is blazing hot but she still often sits under a tree to cool off, her back drenched in sweat... Mrs. Minh said: "It's too hot, and there's a power outage, so I can't sit inside, so I've been sitting under a tree since morning. It's almost 11 am, the shade is round, sitting under a tree is also hot. This afternoon I ate cold rice, I didn't cook because I had to light a wood stove, it was very hot." Then she pointed to the hammock hung under two trees in her garden and said that on June 2, the power went out from 7 pm to 2 am, it was too hot to sleep, at midnight she had to go out to the garden to hang a hammock to sleep under a tree. The two children who lived with their parents across the street cried all night because of the heat. The parents had to take turns fanning their children to sleep. They got up early in the morning to go to work, exhausted and tired.
In hamlet 1, Dai Son commune (Do Luong), Mr. Le Van Nga said: For the past two days, Dai Son commune only had electricity from 8 am to noon (11 pm). On the evening of June 2, until midnight there was still no electricity, my 3 grandchildren could not sleep because of the heat. I felt sorry for them and was afraid that they would get sick, so I had to start the car, turn on the air conditioner so that the 4 of them could sleep in the car. Because I was afraid that sleeping in the car was not safe, I stayed up all night to keep watch." With continuous power outages, not only Mr. Nga's family, but almost all of the nearly 200 households in hamlet 1 also had many sleepless nights, with intermittent sleep because of the heat, which not only affected each person's health, but also disrupted the whole family's activities.
Not only are people's daily activities and habits disrupted by power shortages and sudden power outages, but many cases also put their lives in danger when power outages occur. For example, on June 3, 2023, the family of NTBKh (born in 2012), residing in Vinh city, was "in a state of panic" when they received information that their child was trapped in an elevator due to a sudden power outage. The child was still young and had never encountered a situation of being locked in a closed elevator, so when the incident happened, he was very scared. Fortunately, the police rescued him, and after many days, his family still trembles when talking about this incident.
The shortage of electricity not only disrupts people's lives and activities, but also negatively impacts production and business, especially for small-scale production and business establishments.
On June 4, 2023, thousands of chickens at Mr. Cao Van Thin's chicken farm in Dien Tho commune and Mr. Nguyen Dong's chicken farm in Dien Trung commune (Dien Chau) died due to a sudden power outage. Of which, Mr. Cao Van Thin's family lost 1,000 chickens, and Mr. Nguyen Dong's family lost 400 broiler chickens that were close to being sold. Although the owners of these chicken farms had proactively planned to have a backup generator on site, because the generator broke down at the time of the power outage, they were unable to react in time.
Previously, on the afternoon of May 18, 2023, the chicken farm of Mr. Nguyen Van Binh's family in Kim Phuc hamlet, Nghi An commune (Vinh city) had about 5,000 60-day-old chickens die, with a total weight of about 7.5 tons. Mr. Chu Van Mai - Chairman of Nghi An commune People's Committee said that immediately after receiving information that Mr. Binh's family's chicken farm had died en masse due to heat shock, the local authorities directly went down to support the handling. The commune also recommended that chicken farmers in the area always have plans to deal with power outages on hot days, in order to limit economic damage.
The power shortage has severely affected production and business. Dien Chau district is a locality with strengths in seafood exploitation and processing with more than 120 cold storage warehouses in the area. Many frozen seafood owners said that they felt like they were “sitting on fire” every time there was a notice of rotating power outages, because the quality of seafood was reduced, not to mention the durability of machinery and freezing equipment was also affected when the power was unstable.
Mr. Cao Thanh Thuy in Quyet Thanh hamlet, Dien Bich commune, Dien Chau district has been trading seafood for nearly 10 years. Every time a ship or boat arrives at the port, he connects to purchase seafood, then processes and stores it in cold storage, and sells it nationwide with large orders. Therefore, his family has built 4 cold storages with a capacity of about 500 tons of seafood. For this item, electricity is a mandatory condition for operation. However, in recent times, the lack of electricity has caused significant damage to production and business.
Mr. Thuy said: My family has 4 freezers that run entirely on grid electricity, because in reality there is no power source that is enough to support the warehouses' operations. However, in May and June, there were continuous power outages, the freezers operated for a few hours, and the fresh seafood that had not yet been frozen thawed. This happened every day during peak weeks, causing the seafood to lose quality, and when the goods were exported, the facilities rejected or forced down the price, causing the family to lose a lot of money. Not to mention, the electricity consumption was even more expensive because the freezer's operating mechanism was restarted too many times, each time freezing consumed a large amount of electricity.
Faced with that situation, to minimize the damage, Mr. Thuy's family was forced to invest in a large generator at a cost of nearly 50 million VND. In addition, during this hot season, the import of goods to the cold storage has also decreased by about half due to concerns that power outages will affect the quality of the goods. 4 cold storages with a capacity of nearly 500 tons, but the family only imported about 100 tons, so the revenue decreased compared to before.
In Quy Hop district, where there are many mineral mining businesses, sudden power outages have caused some production facilities to lose tens of millions of dong each time there is a power outage or blackout. The owner of a mineral mining business in Quy Hop district said that at the peak of May-June 2023, the business suffered losses of hundreds of millions of dong due to erratic power supply; because when the stone mining and processing chain is suddenly cut off, it will affect the raw materials and machinery in operation, causing losses in both quality and quantity, affecting the progress of orders when the capacity is reduced by 30-50%.
According to Vietnam Electricity (EVN), due to the impact of the El Nino phenomenon, heat waves, droughts, and water shortages have seriously affected hydroelectric reservoirs across the country. At its peak, on May 11, 2023, 11 out of 47 large hydroelectric reservoirs nationwide were at or near dead water levels.
In April and early May 2023 alone, water in reservoirs reached only less than 50% of the average of many years, some reservoirs only reached 20% compared to the average of many years, causing a serious water shortage for hydropower plants. Therefore, to ensure energy consumption, it is expected that the entire Northern power system will have to reduce 1,000 - 2,400 MW. For Nghe An, it is necessary to reduce 53 - 124 MW of the total capacity during peak hours on hot days. Meanwhile, the electricity consumption output during hot days in May-June 2023 of the whole province is approximately 17,500,000 kWh, the allocated output is not enough to meet the demand.
In addition to the cause of power cuts and sudden power outages due to weather and climate, the fact that Nghe An still has many villages and hamlets without electricity is due to problems at the grassroots level and limited investment resources. Mr. Nguyen Quy Hoa - Deputy Director of Nam Can 2 Hydropower Plant (Ky Son) said: In reality, for hydropower plants, the function and task is to produce electricity to connect to the national grid, it is impossible to supply electricity locally to a locality, but the distribution of electricity and bringing the electricity system to communes, hamlets and villages is the responsibility of the power companies in coordination with the localities.
According to our research, in Ky Son district as well as other localities, the problem of supplying electricity to villages without electricity is delayed because during the construction process, the power lines pass through the protected forest area, making it impossible to trim or cut trees to bury poles or pull the lines without the consent of the central authorities and branches.
The representative of the Ky Son District Protection Forest Management Board said: The unit sympathizes with the difficulties of the villages and hamlets that do not have national grid electricity in the area. However, activities related to protection forests must comply with the provisions of the law. Therefore, in order to supply electricity in these localities, the electricity sector and local authorities need to have documents and recommendations to the province and ministries and branches to convert the protection forest area at those locations into other forest areas for the purpose of connecting electricity to remote areas, only then can the power supply be implemented.
Mr. Nguyen Minh Hong - Director of Ky Son Power Company said: Covering the entire power grid is always the top priority of the unit, however, in reality, bringing electricity to the villages and hamlets is facing many difficulties due to steep and rugged terrain, "stuck" in the protective forest area, which significantly affects the progress of bringing electricity to the villages and hamlets. However, the unit will also make efforts to cover the entire power grid in these 69 hamlets according to the roadmap for the period 2020 - 2025.