On April 1, 2026, in the conference room of China Electric Power Equipment Co., Ltd., a signing ceremony was quietly changing the operational logic of overseas thermal power projects. With the signatures of Xu Jinglun, Chairman of Southern Power Grid International Trade Company, and Zhang Huaiyu, Executive Director of Shanghai Power Investment International Trade Company, the material procurement difficulties for Vietnam's Yongxin coal-fired power plant in the next three years have been easily solved. This signing is not only a simple cooperation, but also a practical implementation of two central enterprises breaking through corporate boundaries and "teaming up" for overseas projects under the policy guidance of the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Why is it necessary to 'joint' procurement?  

The first phase of Vietnam's Yongxin coal-fired power plant project is not a new face, it is a benchmark for energy cooperation between China and Vietnam. As the only overseas thermal power project of China Southern Power Grid System, it is jointly built by China Southern Power Grid International, China Electric Power International, and Vietnam Coal Power, with a total investment of about 1.755 billion US dollars and an annual power generation of 8 billion kilowatt hours, greatly alleviating the "power shortage" in southern Vietnam.

But such a mega project, after entering a long-term operation period, faces thorny supply chain challenges:

Long cycle: Purchasing spare parts separately for overseas projects is cumbersome and time-consuming.

Weak bargaining power: It is difficult to form a scale advantage by working alone, and procurement costs remain high.

Lack of resilience: Once the supply chain breaks, it will directly affect the safe operation of the power plant.

Shortening the cycle, enhancing bargaining, and improving resilience have become the most urgent core demands of the project party, which directly led to the birth of this joint procurement.

China Electric Energy brings full process e-commerce solutions

Faced with the pain points of the Yongxin project, China Electric Energy has come up with its expertise - a full process solution for e-commerce procurement.

As a wholly-owned subsidiary of State Power Investment Corporation, China Electric Power has deep supplier resources and a mature quality control system in the field of thermal power materials. In this cooperation, China Electric Power is not simply a "middleman", but relies on its platform advantages such as "Electric Energy E-purchase" to provide a full chain service for the Yongxin project, from supplier sourcing, agency bidding to bidding approval and listing management.

Simply put, it is to make the procurement of Yongxin project as convenient as shopping on domestic e-commerce platforms: the project party places orders online, and China Electric Energy utilizes its huge centralized procurement scale advantage to quickly match high-quality suppliers and ensure performance and delivery. At the signing ceremony, both parties even directly completed the first order of production materials, demonstrating the efficiency of this model.

Three year service period and new paradigm of collaboration with central enterprises

The "2026-2028 Joint Procurement Service Agreement" signed this time has locked in supply chain cooperation for the next three years. According to the procurement announcement previously released by Southern Power Grid, the joint procurement service project is expected to involve an amount of several million yuan, and the service scope covers the project site in Suifeng County, Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam, focusing on solving the stable supply of spare parts and operation and maintenance services in the thermal power field.

More importantly, this collaboration has created a new business paradigm. China Electric Power (power generation side enterprise) and Southern Power Grid International (grid side enterprise) are no longer fighting independently in overseas projects, but have achieved deep synergy in their supply chains. This is not only a specific action to implement the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council's policy of "collaborative cooperation and joint procurement between central enterprises", but also provides a replicable model for other overseas infrastructure projects - in foreign countries, central enterprises "team up" to go global, which can effectively reduce overall costs and enhance the competitiveness of Chinese standards.

The Yongxin project in Vietnam not only exports Chinese technology, but also showcases the supply chain management wisdom of Chinese enterprises. With the implementation of the joint procurement model, this exemplary power plant of Sino Vietnamese cooperation is expected to take its operational efficiency to a new level.Editor/Yang Meiling