Industrial production is affected by power flickers

​Recently, a number of businesses in Dong Nai province lost power unexpectedly, directly affecting production and business activities.

Production of technical rubber products at Tuong Lai Co., Ltd (Long Thanh district), one of the businesses affected by unstable production electricity

Businesses would like the Electricity industry to improve the quality of electricity supply to actively build production plans, reduce risks on machines and people.

Suddenly power cut, power failure

Within more than half a year, there have been 6 unexpected power cuts, causing Samtec Vietnam Co., Ltd in Long Thanh Industrial Park (Long Thanh district) to face many difficulties. In a document sent to the Dong Nai Industrial Parks Authority, this company reflected: From June 2022 to January 2023, the company had had 6 unplanned power outages. When there was a power outage, machinery and equipment must stop suddenly, affecting the lives and safety of workers operating the machines. Moreover, it also caused heavy damage to production and business activities. The company suggested and the electricity industry had committed to fixing it as soon as possible, but it had not been fixed yet.

Not only inside the industrial park where many factories concentrated, but also production facilities outside occur the same situation. Mr. Truong Quoc Cuong, Director of Tuong Lai Co., Ltd (Loc An Commune, Long Thanh District) said that in there had been 2 times when workers had to take leave from the company because of power failure without prior notice.

“Workers do not work but the company still has to pay salaries during the blackouts. Then the company has to organize overtime working to offset and the overtime salary is paid much higher than the official hour salary. However, every time power cut occurs, the business do not receive any written apology documents, explanations or any supports from the power industry," said Mr. Cuong.

Director of An Phu Thinh Joint Stock Company (An Phuoc commune, Long Thanh district) Vo Thanh Tuan shares that each month the company uses about 400 million dongs of electricity bill, because of the large amount of money the company divides to pay in 3 times (10 days per time). According to regulations, customers have a payment deadline of 15 days after recording the index, but on last March 30, the electricity industry cut off the company's electricity for about 3.5 hours for the reason that the payment for the last time of March has not been paid.

“Business is frustrated because of electricity bills paid monthly before. On the afternoon of March 30, the business transferred money to the bank to pay for the last electricity bill of the month but the power was cut off without notice at 5 PM. Hundreds of pieces of yarn were broken and stuck in the machine. Motor lives are affected. This is a situation of an illegal power cut, the business is asking the electricity industry to explain clearly "- Mr. Tuan expressed.

Different from the above businesses, at Giang Dien Industrial Park (Trang Bom District) there was a local shortage of electricity, affecting investment attraction as well as production and business expansion of enterprises. Infrastructure investors and businesses at this place have often suggested to the electricity industry and leaders of the Provincial People's Committee to consider solving the problem of power sources for industrial production.

Wood production at Giang Dien Industrial Park where electricity is lacked

Ensuring power for living and production

In fact, in the past 2 years, the demand for electricity production has decreased due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, political crisis and economic inflation. This means that there is no local power cut, power shortage because of lack of supply is not available. It may be due to factors such as weather, transmission line problems, slow invested substations and new projects. As a result, machinery, raw materials and products of the business were damaged; production costs increase, profits decrease.

During meetings with the electricity industry, leaders of the Provincial People's Committee emphasized that electricity played a very important role in life and production. In the future, electricity demand for areas such as airports, seaports and new industrial zones will increase sharply. The Electricity industry should actively coordinate with other departments, units and localities to contain electricity works and projects in land use plans; allocating capital sources for the implementation of projects according to the electricity grid development planning and actual needs.

Sharing about the situation of power failure at Samtec Vietnam Co., Ltd., a representative of Dong Nai Power Co., Ltd (Dong Nai PC) said that in 2022 and January 2023 at this business, there were 5 power failures unexpected. The reason was caused by lightning causing electrical discharges, breaking the shielded cables, telecommunication cables hanging along with power poles burnt. When incidents occurred, electricity quickly mobilized human and material resources to solve and restore power to the company. The Electricity Industry also has have announcements about the causes and solutions to minimize unexpected power failure.

In response to the questions of how slow investment in power projects affecting electricity supply, Dong Nai PC leaders said that 110kV projects were slow invested due to many factors, including problems in area clearance, overlap cross planning and find sources of loan financing. However, Dong Nai PC had actively changed the grid connection, had invested in equipment and applied technology to operate the grid flexibly, so it did not affect the power supply.

Dong Nai PC has directed the operation management units to regularly check and evaluate to promptly maintain and replace equipment that may cause problems. Increase the installation of lightning protection devices on lines, substations and low voltage to limit the risk of lightning strikes.​