Workers at Nhon Trach 2 Power Plant in Dong Nai Province. The competitive power wholesale market of Viet Nam would be in pilot phase in 2017 and 2018 and officially become operational in 2019. — VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — A law on the competitive power wholesale market of Viet Nam will be promulgated in the second quarter of 2017.

The market would officially become operational by the year of 2019, Hoang Quoc Vuong, deputy minister of Industry and Trade, said.

Vuong told the conference on building regulations for operations of the competitive power wholesale market held in Ha Noi on Thursday that the country has set a big target for the market's operation.

However, the information infrastructure and policies for its operations have seen shortcomings, preventing the market from developing in a short time.

In August, the ministry issued a decision to approve the detailed design of the competitive power wholesale market. Accordingly, the market would be in pilot phase in 2017 and 2018 and officially become operational in 2019.

Viet Nam was set to have a competitive power retail market by the year 2021.

The ministry has assigned the Electricity Regulatory Authority of Viet Nam (ERAV) to come up regulations for the wholesale market.

The advisory team has completed the first draft for the market with contents relating to the System Marginal Price (SMP) such as the market's member structure, plans for a year, month, week, and day, along with price offerings and price calculations.

The draft issued regulations for the market's members to publish necessary information on the independent mechanism of price calculations, productivity to improve the market's operations and transparency.

Participating in the new draft, the electricity unit buyers were worried about the new calculation of a ceiling price in 2019 when applying the high coefficient.

However, ERAV said the high ceiling price was aimed at encouraging reliability, effectiveness and operation of power plants.

The high ceiling would not affect to the retail price, Nguyen Anh Tuan, ERAV's director said.

Tuan said they would build two regulation kits for two phases of the competitive power wholesale market.

The operation regulations for the market in 2019 would continue to apply the SMP mechanism. Retail prices would be calculated after operations without power reservation.

Deputy Minister Vuong said the draft has several complicated contents. It was the reason that the relevant agencies should conduct more research and exchanges to issue suitable regulations.

He also asked the Electricity of Viet Nam to accelerate completion of information and technology infrastructure to serve the market's operations. — VNS