Proposal to allocate losses to electricity prices
In the audited consolidated financial report for 2024, Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) recorded the after-tax profit of the parent company at VND 7,223 billion, marking a better business results than the previous period.
In addition to profits, EVN also had additional positive adjustments such as 154 billion VND from pre-equitization dividends of Power Generation Corporation 3, more than 60 billion VND from development investment fund, 19 billion VND from other equity funds and nearly 10 billion VND from other items.
On the other hand, the group still has to set aside and distribute many internal funds, of which the reward and welfare fund alone accounts for more than VND 3,098 billion, the development investment fund is more than VND 1,172 billion, along with a number of other adjustments at the affiliated company and equity.
After offsetting, EVN's accumulated loss decreased from VND 41,824 billion at the beginning of the year to VND 38,688 billion at the end of 2024. Compared to the skyrocketing loss of more than VND28,000 billion in 2023, the results in 2024 showed signs of improvement. However, with a loss of VND 38,688 billion, EVN needs to maintain stable profits for many consecutive years to gradually erase this figure.
Previously, EVN reported to the Ministry of Industry and Trade that due to the impact of the geopolitical situation, the high cost of electricity purchase in the period of 2022-2023 caused many difficulties for businesses, with accumulated losses of about VND 50,029 billion. By the end of 2024, the accumulated loss of parent company EVN was still about 44,792 billion VND.
In light of the above situation, EVN has proposed that the Minister of Industry and Trade report to the Prime Minister to allow the calculation of accumulated losses (these are costs directly serving the production and supply of electricity that have not been fully calculated and compensated in the previous average retail price of electricity) as a cost allowed to be included in the average retail price of electricity.
In the third draft of the Decree amending and supplementing Decree 72/2025 on the mechanism and time for adjusting average retail electricity prices, the Ministry of Industry and Trade officially proposed to add a provision allowing Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) to calculate other costs that have not been fully accounted for before in the average retail electricity price.
Electricity prices adjusted to increase but still lose
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the results of EVN's inspection of electricity production and business costs in 2021 and 2022 showed that EVN's electricity production and business results in 2022 lost VND 36,294.15 billion. Income from activities related to electricity production and business in 2022 is VND 10,058.36 billion.
In total, EVN's electricity production and business activities in 2022 and activities related to electricity production and business (including income from financial activities and from selling resistance capacity) in 2022 lost VND 26,235.78 billion (excluding income from other production).
At the press conference to announce the results of EVN's electricity production and business cost inspection in 2021 and 2022 on the afternoon of March 31, 2023, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Nam - Deputy General Director of EVN, in 2022, EVN suffered mainly losses due to high input electricity costs, many of which increased.
EVN itself has made efforts to overcome the difficulties, however, in the world, input fuels such as coal, oil, gas, especially coal prices have increased more than 3 times, sometimes increasing 4-5 times. This is a major reason for the high input cost" - Mr. Nguyen Xuan Nam said.
In the 2023 Summary Report, EVN said that the unit has made efforts to implement solutions such as cost savings (saving, reducing 15% of regular expenses, from 20-50% of large repair costs) and continued to implement solutions to try to balance production results. In addition, the average retail price of electricity has been adjusted to increase twice in 2023 (up 3% from May 4, 2023 and up 4.5% from November 9, 2023) but is still not enough to cover the cost of electricity production, so it continues to suffer losses in electricity production and business for the second consecutive year.
