Mr Pham Phong, the General Director of the Da Nang-based Song Ba JSC, has spent much time researching and developing hi-tech devices to control water discharge in hydropower plants.  This, thereby, has helped to prevent already-swollen reservoirs at such plants from sending ‘uncontrolled release’ of floodwaters into the basins of rivers.

A hi-tech system for measuring water surface levels installed at the Krong H’Nang hydro-power plant

Over recent years, some hydro-power plants in Viet Nam, especially in the central region, discharged huge quantities of water from their dams in a bid to prevent breaching during heavy rains, and they have constantly been blamed by the general public for devastating flash flooding submerging thousands of houses.

In 2009, the A Vuong hydropower dam in Quang Nam Province released a total of 150 million cubic meters of water during Typhoon Ketsana, worsening flooding causing over millions of USD worth of damage to residents living in the basins of the Vu Gia and Thu Bon rivers.

Three years later, unexpected earthquakes started rattling the Song Tranh hydro-power plant No 2 in the province’s Bac Tra My District. 

In June 2012, at a scientific seminar hosted by Da Nang, Mr Phong made an impressive representation about his own effective measures to ensure safe discharge of water from reservoirs upstream at the Phu Yen Province-based Krong H’Nang hydro-power plant operated by the Song Ba JSC.

Mr Phong-given solutions focus on installing rain gauge systems and flow measuring devices along streams or small rivers running into the plant’s reservoirs, thereby accurately estimating the amount of water to be discharged safely through spillways so as to avoid deadly flows of water into residental areas in the basins of rivers.

In particular, Mr Phong and his staff members have made their great efforts to create a hi-tech system used to measure water surface levels in a reservoir with accuracy of a hundredth of millimeter.  This device reads a vertical measurement and can be correlated to the volume of the reservoir with a depth-capacity curve.

The hi-tech measurement system has already been installed at the Dak Mi 4A hydropower plant’s reservoirs, which has helped to ensure their safe operation. 

Mr Phong-developed water discharge control solutions, over recent years, have received high praise from the general public, especially scientific researchers, and power plants.

Given his great achievements, Mr Phong has already been honoured with a second-class Labour Medal from the State President.

Currently, Mr Phong and his company’s staff members are focusing on identifying effective measures to enhance the monitoring of the operation of hydropower plants on the upper sections of the Vu Gia, Thu Bon and Ba rivers, in accordance with the Prime Minister-approved Decision No 1537/QD-TTg concerning the operating procedures of water reservoirs. 

Besides the above-mentioned assigned tasks, the company is embarking on seeking solutions to the problem of coastal erosion in Lien Chieu District, and the salinity of the water in the Cau Do (Red Bridge) River.