A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Environment, Resources and Development

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1998

To date, Vietnam has not had a master plan for its energy sector. Energy strategies in Vietnam now come from existing plans of energy sub-sectors, such as Power plan, Coal plan, and Gas plan. There have been some attempts to build a frame for development of energy sector, or to construct the national energy policy. This study is aimed to analyze existing energy strategies in Vietnam with consideration to energy strategies of some neighboring ASEAN member countries. The results from the study can help to assess the energy strategies for development of the country's energy sector, based on principle of least system cost. For instance, in the period 1995-2020, with the expected growth of the economy and assumptions for energy development in existing plans, the results of the study show that all of the domestic energy sources should be used for domestic energy production, and energy export will not be an optimally economic option. In addition, the study can introduce a strong tool consistent with · a useful method - using EFOM-ENV model for energy strategy analysis as well as for energy planning. With a certain database, the study can analyze the response of the energy system to changes in energy strategies. As many hypotheses as possible can put into the model to compose many cases, and policy maker can choose the best case from outputs of the model.