Power Engineering Consulting Joint Stock Company 3 - The best solution for the best choice
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According to the PDP8’s Implementation Plan (issued under the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 262/QD-TTg dated 1 April 2024 approving the Plan for the implementation of the National Electricity Development Plan for the period 2021 – 2030, with a vision to 2050). Accordingly, the People’s Committees of provinces and direct-controlled cities are responsible for organizing the selection of investors of power projects in accordance with law. For LNG thermal power projects that do not have an investor are prompted to urgently complete the selection of investors, accelerate the preparation and submission of feasibility study reports of the project, which shall be completed in the second quarter of 2025. Currently, there are 13 LNG power projects approved in PDP8, with a total scale of 22,400 MW from now to 2030, of which 4 projects do not have investors: Thai Binh, Nghi Son, Quynh Lap, Ca Na.
In order to provide more detailed regulations on bidding for selecting investors in power projects, Decree 115/2024/ND-CP (“Decree 115“) was issued by the Government on 16 September 2024. This Decree details a number of articles and measures for implementing the Law on Bidding and the Land Law on selecting investors to implement investment projects using land, including the following contents: ensuring competition in selecting investors; incentives in selecting investors; costs for selecting investors; processes and procedures for selecting investors; processes, procedures, costs, and roadmap for online bidding for selecting investors; national database on selecting investors; cases where investors are not selected through bidding on the National Bidding Network; methods and standards for evaluating bidding documents; contents of investment project contracts using land; inspection and supervision of bidding activities to select investors; handling situations in investor selection; measures to implement the Law on Bidding on selecting investors to implement investment projects using land; conditions on capacity and experience of members of expert groups and appraisal groups; connection and information sharing between the National Bidding Network System and other information systems; handling violations in bidding activities. Decree 115 also stipulates amendments and supplements to a number of related Decrees.
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Regarding investment in power projects, according to point i, clause 2, Article 4, a power project is subject to bidding according to the provisions of the Law on Electricity when there are 02 or more interested investors registering to implement the project, which is subject to bidding according to the provisions of the Law on Land. Decree 115, in Article 70, adds Clause 6 to Article 3: Decree No. 137/2013/ND-CP dated 21 October 2013 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Electricity Law and the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Electricity Law, when there are 02 or more investors interested in and registering to implement a project to build an power project using capital sources outside the state budget to develop renewable power sources or power sources using natural gas, LNG, it is necessary to conduct bidding to select investors, except for some cases such as: Projects under the State monopoly according to the provisions of the law on electricity; Projects invested in the form of public-private partnership and public investment; Projects in the list of 05-year production, business and investment development plans of enterprises established by decision of the Prime Minister; Hydropower expansion projects, offshore wind power, self-use power sources (self-production and self-consumption) and emergency power projects as prescribed.
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Additionally, when conducting bidding for a power project, the bidding documents include the draft electricity purchase contract agreed upon with the electricity buyer in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Electricity (Clause 1, Article 14). The bidding party must announce the electricity price in the investor’s bidding documents when opening the bid (Point d, Clause 2, Article 19). The evaluation of bidding documents for power projects specified in this Decree is based on the Total Score built on the basis of combining the points of capacity, experience, investment and business plan and the points of investment efficiency in developing the industry, field, and locality, ensuring the total proportion is 100%, in which capacity and experience account for 5% to 10% of the total score; investment and business plan accounts for 5% to 10%; and the efficiency of investment in developing industries, fields and localities accounts for 80% to 90% (Clause 4, Article 45). The criteria for evaluating the efficiency of investment in developing industries, fields and localities are the ceiling electricity price below the ceiling price frame issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the price principle agreed with the electricity buyer according to the provisions of the law on electricity in the bidding documents (Clause 2, Article 49). Contracts signed before the effective date of this Decree shall continue to be implemented according to the provisions of the contract. In case the law at the time of signing the contract is silent about the concerned issue, the provisions of the Bidding Law No. 22/2023/QH15 and this Decree shall apply.
