VietNamNet Bridge – Chair of the Vietnam Energy Association Tran Viet Ngai has denied the opinion that hydropower plants are the main “culprit” of the floods, saying that flood water discharge is a very important work to protect dams, while hydropower plants do not cause floods.

HCM City: Flood may end in eight years

Recently, the central region has been continuously suffering from floods and people have blamed the continued floods on the hydropower plants. What would you say about that?

In principle, hydropower plants do not cause floods because water reservoirs have the functions of preventing water flow, regulating floods and stopping floods. In case of overly large floods, it is necessary to discharge overflow, but this also does not have an impact on the floods.

However, it is clear that the trouble at Ho Ho hydropower plant in Ha Tinh province and the flood water discharge at Song Ba Ha hydropower plant in recent days both have made the floods overflow to the lower section?

People do not fully understand the principle of hydropower plants’ operation. Dangers will only occur in case dam is broken, and so far no such accident has occurred. Discharging flood water is a necessary thing to do to protect dams, not to cause floods.

Ba Ha River is located in Song Hinh district in Phu Yen province which has a capacity of 500 million cubic meters. In case the water volume exceeds the capacity, it is necessary to discharge water in order to protect the dam, even if the water flow could reach thousands cubic meters per second.

There are many stream flows in the locality, and I believe that this is the reason that the floods rise rapidly.

Do you mean that hydropower plants in general do not have any bad impacts on the environment?

Everything always has its bright side and its dark side. In order to implement a hydropower plant project, we have to chop down trees, build dams and prepare the ground. When trees are cut down, and the land is turned over, the environment will be spoiled.

For a long time, we have been only paying attention to the economic effects brought by hydropower plants, while we have not paid appropriate attention to the environment. Therefore, in many cases, necessary techniques to protect the environment have not been strictly followed.

If we do not keep thorough control and supervision over the implementation of hydropower plant projects, this will cause serious consequences to the people who live near hydropower plants, their assets and the environment.

Many people think that there are too many hydropower plants in Vietnam. The plants are located in nearly all provinces, and most of them are small scale plants. Do you think so?

It is true that there are many hydropower plants in Vietnam, especially the plants in the central region. Meanwhile, a lot of other projects have been programmed. However, the plants have small and medium scale. We need power in the dry season, but small plants cannot satisfy the demand. The small plants can provide electricity in rainy season, but we do not lack electricity in the rainy season because big plants run by EVN are capable of providing enough electricity to the national economy. Therefore, we should not encourage to build up small scale hydropower plants.

Source: VnExpress