EVALUATION OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS OF SELECTED WATER COMPANIES IN VIETNAM

Abstract

Performance indicators of water supply company can provide important information of its service quality and business efficiency, and be intelligent basis for decision making process. The authors have analyzed key performance indicators of 19 selected municipal water supply systems in Vietnam, including operation and design capacities, treated water quality, unit investment cost, water tariff, non-revenue water (NRW) ratio, and energy consumption rate. The average NRW of the 19 systems was 12.6% which was lower than country-wide value of 21%. The energy consumption rate of selected systems was ranging from 0.16 to 0.5KWh/m3, in average 0.3KWh/m3, which was also lower than country average of 0.35KWh/m3, whereas the rate of energy consumption in municipal water systems in China, USA, Australia, Chile, Canada was ranging from 0.1 to 1.33KWh/m3, depending on ground elevation, transfer distance, influent water quality, and applied technologies for water treatment and transportation. The selected water systems have applied improved treatment technologies such as mechanized coagulation-flocculation, lamella settling tank, dual media sand filter, combined contact clarifier with lamella plates, etc. The average treated water turbidity was ≤0.5NTU. The domestic water tariff of the selected systems was within the country range, from USD0.2 to 0.4/m3. Further, the authors have indicated correlation between selected performance indicators, such as energy consumption rate and non-revenue water ratio. The analytical results shown performance indicators of top water companies in Vietnam were in fairly good position compared to others, but improvements were still needed. Reduction of NRW ratio and keeping it at a low value are other challenges requiring water utility efforts.