Cummins Con Dao : The Diesel Lifeline And The Island That Escaped

Cummins DKSH Vietnam proudly advertises its contribution to the 2023 Diesel Power Supplement Project on Côn Đảo. The tropical Vietnamese archipelago had developed an expensive, temperamental bastard of an electricity system. Four generating units, 6.4 megawatts of additional capacity and a celebratory photograph for the corporate portfolio. Lovely. Unfortunately, the surrounding history is considerably less photogenic.

The island had endured generator breakdowns, rolling power cuts and a near-exhaustion of diesel supplies. Meanwhile, rooftop solar installations struggled to obtain permission to export electricity. The electricity operator was absorbing enormous annual losses, and one construction partner later encountered serious difficulties on separate infrastructure contracts. Then, in September 2025, Vietnam connected Côn Đảo to the national electricity grid. The connection reduced the island’s dependence on the very diesel system Cummins had helped expand. Welcome to paradise, where the turtles were trying to reproduce and the accountants were haemorrhaging dong. Meanwhile, the generators were burning money faster than the publicity department could polish the bloody brochures.

Paradise, With An Exhaust Pipe

Côn Đảo ought to be a difficult place to sell the romance of industrial combustion. Scattered off Vietnam’s southern coast, its islands contain tropical forests, coral reefs and seagrass meadows. They also provide some of the country’s most important nesting grounds for endangered green sea turtles. Dugongs still inhabit the surrounding marine environment. The national park received IUCN Green List recognition in 2025, reflecting considerable conservation achievements across its protected habitats. Nature spent millions of years assembling something remarkable. Humanity eventually arrived with a diesel tanker, a clipboard and an invoice.

For years, Côn Đảo depended heavily on diesel generators at the An Hội Power Plant. The arrangement resembled supplying a luxury tropical resort with electricity from a collection of ageing lorries. Somebody had apparently removed their engines, bolted them to the floor and instructed them to keep turning indefinitely. The island needed electricity, obviously. Residents required functioning homes, businesses needed reliable power and essential public services could hardly operate on coconut water and sustainability slogans. Unfortunately, the underlying system was expensive, environmentally undesirable and increasingly unable to keep pace with demand.

Into this magnificent arrangement stepped Cummins DKSH Vietnam. The joint venture between Cummins and DKSH distributes engines, generating equipment and aftermarket services throughout the country. Its project reference expresses pride in supplying four generating units rated at 1,600 kW apiece. The installation reached completion on 6 February 2024, adding 6.4 MW of diesel generating capacity at An Hội. The wider scheme carried a reported investment of VND 74 billion. That is the corporate photograph, neatly framed and ready for the website. Turn it over, however, and the picture becomes considerably less attractive.

The Island Was Already Running On Mechanical Desperation

The problems at An Hội did not begin with the Cummins DKSH project. They were the reason additional generation had become necessary. In November 2022, technical failures knocked three of the island’s nine diesel generators out of service. Their combined capacity amounted to approximately 3.8 MW. Businesses faced electricity shortages, while hotels received requests to reduce consumption or operate their own generators.

Contemporaneous reports identified those units as Caterpillar equipment, not the four Cummins units that arrived later. This distinction matters. The story concerns weaknesses in the island’s diesel-dependent supply model. It does not allege that Cummins manufactured the generators responsible for those particular failures.

The consequences were nonetheless depressingly familiar. Hotels had to generate electricity privately, production suffered and the island’s infrastructure began resembling a mechanical game of musical chairs. Unfortunately, every missing chair came with an enormous fuel bill. By April 2023, reports described older generators operating for as long as 20–22 hours daily. Demand kept growing, equipment continued deteriorating and the island struggled to sustain its expanding tourism economy. Apparently, its collection of elderly engines considered retirement a hostile suggestion.

Cummins DKSH eventually supplied additional capacity into this environment. As a temporary reinforcement, the project had an understandable purpose. Yet it entered a system whose problems stretched far beyond the number of cylinders available to turn a crankshaft. Additional machinery might provide more electricity, but it could not eliminate the underlying financial and logistical weaknesses. Worse still, those problems were about to become considerably more embarrassing.

Fifty Thousand Litres Of Oh, Shit

On 1 March 2023, An Hội Power Plant came perilously close to running out of usable diesel. Local reporting described an urgent warning from Côn Đảo’s electricity operator. Its accessible fuel reserves would reportedly last only until approximately 7 pm that evening. Around 58,000 litres remained in the main tank, but the normal transfer arrangement could not access everything. Some of the fuel sat below the relevant outlet level. Meanwhile, rough seas had prevented the normal supply vessel from reaching the island.

The emergency response involved arranging another 50,000 litres from local suppliers. Authorities also dispatched a mainland tanker to replenish the power plant. This is where the romance of diesel generation starts smelling less like engineering excellence and more like a petrol station having a nervous breakdown.

An Hội reportedly consumed approximately 25,000 litres of diesel daily at the time. Its electricity supply depended on much more than mechanical capacity. Maritime deliveries, storage arrangements, weather conditions and an entire logistical chain all had to cooperate. Every engine could be functioning perfectly, yet a missing fuel shipment could still leave the island scrambling. All the horsepower in the South China Sea would have been useless without diesel reaching the combustion chambers.

That is the less glamorous side of electricity security. You can purchase another generator, commission another installation and celebrate another engineering milestone. But if the diesel tanker cannot arrive, the entire industrial orchestra is left holding its instruments. Somebody then has to explain that the conductor has run out of bloody juice. More machinery increased potential generating capacity, certainly, but it did not abolish dependence on fuel shipments. The eventual mainland connection would address something much more fundamental.

The Solar Panels Waiting For Permission To Be Useful

Perhaps the most absurd chapter emerged in February 2023. Vietnamese newspaper Tuổi Trẻ investigated a particularly ridiculous electricity paradox on Côn Đảo. Diesel generators were struggling to satisfy demand, while businesses endured power cuts. Yet regulations prevented some rooftop solar installations from exporting surplus electricity to the local grid. The problem was not that the sun had gone on strike. It was paperwork, that supposedly inexhaustible bureaucratic resource capable of producing obstacles without generating a single useful kilowatt.

The national park had installed rooftop solar systems at its headquarters and mobile ranger station. Together, they provided approximately 30 kW of design capacity. Military facilities had installed systems with a combined capacity of 256 kWp. However, the regulatory framework restricted grid exports from certain installations completed after the end of 2020. The national park even requested permission to contribute surplus electricity without charging the electricity operator. According to the reporting, officials replied that the necessary national policy framework did not yet exist.

Imagine the fucking conversation. The island is short of electricity, its diesel generators are under strain and hotels are burning additional fuel. Meanwhile, the national park has solar equipment capable of producing electricity. Unfortunately, the authorities cannot agree on the administrative mechanism for accepting it. Somewhere, a photocopier has more operational authority than the sun. A department responsible for electricity supply has managed to create a situation where available sunshine must first negotiate with a filing cabinet.

Forty Buildings, Free Sunshine And A Filing Cabinet

Another 40 public buildings had installed rooftop solar, with combined design capacity exceeding 374 kWp. Regulatory constraints limited their ability to export surplus electricity. Nevertheless, local officials reported that the installations had reduced average monthly electricity bills by nearly 30%. There was evidently economic value in harnessing local sunshine. The wider electricity system simply had not worked out how to accommodate everything those panels might produce.

Solar equipment on that scale could not replace the island’s entire diesel fleet. Night-time demand, storage, grid stability and seasonal output create genuine engineering constraints. Nobody sensible expects a few rooftops to power every hotel, hospital, military installation and air-conditioning unit across the archipelago. The point is considerably simpler. A system desperately short of electricity was simultaneously preventing some available cleaner generation from contributing more effectively.

This was a documented policy and integration failure during the same period that authorities pursued additional diesel capacity. One technology required engineering, fuel deliveries and substantial running expenditure. The other also required permission to contribute electricity it could already generate. The contrast would be funny if the financial consequences were not so grotesque. Even then, the administrative ingenuity deserves a special mention. Somebody had somehow managed to make sunshine wait for a government circular.

One Hundred And Fifty Billion Dong Down The Exhaust

Cummins DKSH’s own project reference contains an extraordinary admission. Quoting Vietnamese reporting, it describes annual electricity-sector losses of approximately VND 150 billion. Diesel generation reportedly cost roughly twice the electricity selling price. The company celebrates expanding a generation system while acknowledging its ruinous operating economics. There is something revealing about placing both facts inside the same promotional account. Apparently, readers were supposed to admire the shiny machinery and ignore the financial inferno behind it.

Cummins DKSH did not create the island’s electricity tariff policy. The electricity authorities chose to charge consumers mainland-equivalent prices despite the higher cost of isolated diesel generation. Providing affordable electricity to island communities is also a legitimate public-policy objective. Nevertheless, the arithmetic exposes the economic brutality of the arrangement. Electricity demand rises, more diesel becomes necessary and additional generators require maintenance. Tankers transport fuel across the sea while the electricity operator absorbs the difference between production costs and consumer tariffs.

By 2024, reporting placed the annual diesel-fuel subsidy burden at nearly VND 200 billion. That estimate uses a different accounting measure from the VND 150 billion figure in the Cummins case study. Both nevertheless illustrate substantial financial pressure within the island’s electricity system. This was not a minor operational inconvenience or an unfortunate quarterly variance. It was a financial bonfire with connecting rods, consuming public resources to sustain an increasingly expensive generation model.

The Machinery Works. The Economics Don’t.

The machinery may have done precisely what its manufacturers designed it to do. Engines could run beautifully, alternators could produce acceptable electricity and every component could perform according to specification. But the broader economic model still resembled somebody feeding banknotes into a furnace. The manufacturer then receives congratulations for the quality of the flames. Engineering success and economic sustainability are not interchangeable concepts, however enthusiastically corporate communications departments invite readers to confuse them.

Cummins sells generating capacity, while the electricity operator confronts production costs. Residents and businesses depend on the resulting supply. These are different roles, so the financial burden cannot simply be attributed to the supplier. Yet the promotional account offers a remarkably narrow view of the outcome. Successful equipment installation does not automatically mean a successful long-term energy strategy. That distinction becomes particularly important when the customer must keep purchasing diesel to maintain electricity production.

The electricity authorities had already recognised this structural problem. Long before the Cummins DKSH project reached completion, they were examining an alternative. Their proposal promised to change the economics of electricity supply altogether. The generators addressed immediate capacity requirements, but the longer-term solution involved something less photogenic and vastly more consequential. A cable running beneath the sea would eventually make the island’s entire energy arrangement look rather different.

The Electricity Operator Had Already Identified The Problem

In May 2022, Southern Power Corporation publicly discussed the disadvantages of expanding diesel generation on Côn Đảo. It identified environmental pollution, high operating costs, electricity losses and physical constraints at An Hội. The corporation was responding to questions about its preference for a submarine electricity connection. Why pursue an expensive mainland cable instead of relying on additional island-based solar and wind generation?

Its answer centred on reliable capacity. The existing generation system faced limitations, and a mainland connection offered a long-term solution. That discussion took place before the four Cummins DKSH units reached completion. In other words, the electricity authorities already recognised the drawbacks of diesel dependence. Yet they simultaneously needed additional diesel generators to keep the lights on until something better arrived.

This was a practical contradiction rather than necessarily administrative hypocrisy. Temporary generation can make sense when an existing network cannot meet immediate demand. Nobody expects island residents to live by candlelight while engineers wrestle a submarine cable into position. But the distinction between the emergency solution and the strategic objective remains impossible to ignore. Cummins DKSH celebrates its contribution to the former, while Vietnam Electricity would later celebrate achieving the latter. Meanwhile, diesel engines worked overtime to keep the present from collapsing before the future arrived.

The Construction Partner With A Much Less Celebratory History

Now for the part that Cummins DKSH’s brief project reference does not explore. Vietnam Electricity’s Southern Power Corporation identifies Tâm Thành Phát and Thành Lợi Construction among the diesel expansion contractors. Their consortium completed the project ahead of its planned deadline. That achievement belongs in the record. However, Thành Lợi’s wider contracting history on Côn Đảo subsequently became considerably more troublesome.

Vietnamese reporting in August 2024 examined Thành Lợi’s public infrastructure contracts across Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province. Journalists reported that the company regularly secured substantial construction packages. These included numerous projects associated with Côn Đảo National Park. According to their investigation, Thành Lợi achieved a particularly striking success rate on contracts awarded by the park’s management board. Many attracted limited competition, with Thành Lợi reportedly participating as the only bidder.

The reporters estimated that Thành Lợi participated in at least 40 tenders between 2015 and August 2024. They calculated approximately 30 successful bids, with aggregate winning values around VND 600 billion. These were indicative research figures rather than an official comprehensive tally. Even with that limitation, the pattern attracted journalistic attention. The island’s contracting economy appeared capable of producing almost as much repeat business as its diesel generators. Mercifully, nobody had proposed connecting the procurement department to a crankshaft.

The Contractor Who Kept Winning

A shortage of competing bidders does not establish collusion, corruption or unlawful procurement. It does, however, justify examining how public contracts are awarded. Competitive tendering should encourage scrutiny of price, capability and performance. When the same contractor repeatedly wins contests with limited participation, the pattern deserves examination. That remains true even where every individual award ultimately complies with applicable procurement rules.

Thành Lợi had also worked with Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu Power Company over several years. In 2016, it won a contract for Côn Đảo’s electricity administration building. The reported winning value was approximately VND 26.7 billion. The diesel installation therefore did not represent an isolated appearance by an unfamiliar business. Thành Lợi already participated in the island’s infrastructure economy, including projects associated with electricity-sector organisations.

That background does not transform the Cummins DKSH installation into evidence of procurement wrongdoing. The available material establishes no such finding. But it challenges the idea that an infrastructure project can be understood through an equipment photograph alone. Contractors, awarding authorities, procurement histories and subsequent performance records form part of the wider picture. In Thành Lợi’s case, that history would soon produce a very different sort of engineering photograph.

The Reservoir That Decided To Move

On 20 July 2024, part of the Đất Dốc freshwater reservoir suffered subsidence and a landslip. The incident occurred during water-filling and load-testing operations. Situated within Côn Đảo National Park, the project carried an investment value exceeding VND 89 billion. It aimed to improve freshwater storage, support firefighting and strengthen the island’s resilience. Thành Lợi Construction held the construction-and-equipment contract, reportedly worth more than VND 73 billion.

During testing, workers detected water leakage at the second dam. Later that evening, part of the structure suffered subsidence and a landslip. Reports described cracks in a concrete roadway and substantial deformation around the affected area. The reservoir had been designed to hold water, an ambition water apparently regarded as negotiable. Somewhere between the drawings and the testing procedure, the project developed an unscheduled interest in geological movement. That is generally an undesirable characteristic in infrastructure intended to remain exactly where somebody built it.

The incident attracted official scrutiny. However, subsequent reporting did not establish that Thành Lợi alone caused the failure. Preliminary assessments identified possible design deficiencies, issues involving testing procedures and the effects of heavy rainfall. Provincial authorities established an investigation team to examine the causes and responsibilities. Those distinctions matter. A contractor’s involvement in a troubled project does not automatically make it responsible for every design or supervision decision.

An Engineering Incident, Not A Licence To Invent Blame

Vietnam Television reported questions about the reservoir’s waterproofing membrane design. Preliminary assessments considered whether it adequately accounted for the water levels involved. Reports also discussed the absence of a completed water-filling and load-testing procedure from the design consultant. These were preliminary findings rather than a final determination of liability. Any attribution of responsibility would require stronger evidence.

Nevertheless, the documentary connection remains significant. A business involved in Cummins DKSH’s celebrated diesel installation also undertook construction work on another major island infrastructure project. That separate project suffered a serious incident and attracted official investigation. This does not demonstrate any defect in the Cummins generators. Nor does it establish that the diesel project experienced comparable problems. It simply makes the wider contracting history more complicated than the ceremonial photographs suggest.

Infrastructure publicity has a peculiar habit of treating completion as the end of the story. A ribbon falls, somebody shakes hands and the communications department congratulates itself. But the actual histories of contractors and their projects continue developing long after the photographer leaves. Sometimes those developments produce rather less attractive corporate case studies. In Thành Lợi’s case, the next concerned a separate public contract that the authorities would ultimately terminate.

A Contract Terminated And The Money Gone

In May 2025, Côn Đảo National Park’s management board terminated a separate construction contract awarded to Thành Lợi. The project involved a forest-patrol road connecting boundary markers within the national park. According to Vietnamese legal and prosecution news reporting, Decision 134/QĐ-VQG carried the date 26 May 2025. The decision terminated the contract after the company failed to fulfil its obligations.

The report quoted contractual grounds concerning abandonment of the works or a clear intention to stop performing the contract. It also referenced financial incapacity to complete the project. Thành Lợi had itself requested termination. That is a substantially different project reference from the one celebrating additional diesel generation.

In February 2024, Thành Lợi appeared among the contractors delivering new generating capacity ahead of schedule. By May 2025, another public infrastructure contract involving the company had ended amid serious financial difficulties. Different contracts, different projects and no established defect in the Cummins installation. Nevertheless, the subsequent record adds important context to the company’s activities on the island.

There is something wonderfully bleak about the contrast. One corner of Côn Đảo hosts a generator project’s celebratory ceremony. Elsewhere, a reservoir experiences a structural incident. Then the national park terminates another contract after its contractor encounters serious financial difficulty. This is precisely the background that disappears when industrial suppliers reduce infrastructure projects to photographs and model numbers. The engine brochure is not the whole bloody island, however enthusiastically its marketing department might pretend otherwise.

Cummins DKSH Also Has An Overhaul Story

The supplier has another An Hội reference in its portfolio. A separate Cummins DKSH case study describes overhaul services involving two diesel generator sets at the same power plant. The company says its work restored stable operation, improved reliability and extended equipment life. However, the page does not establish when the company performed those overhauls. Neither does it confirm whether the equipment formed part of the February 2024 installation.

Consequently, the available material cannot establish whether the overhaul work occurred before or after the national-grid connection. It also provides no evidence that Cummins DKSH performed remedial work on recently supplied equipment. Those questions remain open, but the commercial structure is clear enough.

There is equipment supply, followed by potential spare-parts sales, maintenance, inspections, repairs and overhauls. Cummins DKSH explicitly markets both generating equipment and ongoing aftermarket support. This is normal industrial commerce. Nevertheless, every additional engine creates further servicing requirements and replacement-component costs. The commercial opportunity does not necessarily end when somebody uploads the commissioning photographs to the company website.

Meanwhile, the public electricity operator must evaluate the entire cost of sustaining that equipment. One party sells the machinery and associated services. The other must determine when continued operation stops making economic sense. That is the tension at the heart of Côn Đảo’s diesel story. A successful installation for the supplier can still belong to an expensive transitional system. Eventually, the customer may decide that the sensible long-term solution lies elsewhere.

September 2025: The Mainland Arrives

The decisive change came in September 2025. Vietnam Electricity completed Côn Đảo’s connection to the national grid through a 110 kV transmission system. The infrastructure extended approximately 103.7 kilometres, including 77.7 kilometres of submarine cable. The project carried a total reported investment of VND 4,923 billion.

Vietnam Electricity officially energised the transmission line on 2 September 2025. Two days later, it successfully energised the Côn Đảo substation for the new supply arrangement. For an island previously dependent on local diesel generation, this represented a major transformation.

The connection allowed Côn Đảo to reduce its reliance on local diesel generation. It also improved electricity access and addressed longstanding concerns about costs, supply limitations and emissions. Vietnam Electricity presented the project as a major improvement in electricity security and sustainable development. A further inauguration took place in December 2025, although energisation had already occurred in September.

Here, at last, is the punchline. Cummins DKSH had proudly supplied additional diesel generating capacity less than nineteen months earlier. Now Vietnam had energised infrastructure intended to reduce the island’s dependence on precisely that generation model. This does not make the earlier equipment pointless. The generators may have fulfilled a vital bridging role, and local standby generation could remain sensible. But the long-term direction could hardly be clearer.

The Ambulance And The Treatment

The diesel installation was the ambulance. The submarine cable was the treatment. Cummins’ case study celebrates the ambulance without explaining much about the condition that made it necessary. Nor does the company’s promotional account explore the subsequent intervention that changed the patient’s prospects.

There is nothing inherently wrong with supplying emergency capacity. Industrial equipment frequently provides essential temporary solutions while customers develop more permanent infrastructure. The problem arises when corporate storytelling presents the temporary intervention as though it represents the entire achievement. In Côn Đảo’s case, the wider story includes the reasons diesel generation became so financially burdensome. It also includes the authorities’ determination to find a more sustainable arrangement.

Vietnam spent billions of dong building a connection intended to fundamentally change the island’s electricity system. That investment tells readers something important about the limitations of the previous model. The additional generators helped maintain supply during the transition. The new transmission infrastructure offered a route away from depending on them for routine electricity generation.

The Smart Grid Gets The Final Word

The story continued into 2026. On 1 February, Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation inaugurated Côn Đảo’s smart electricity grid. The upgrade introduced automated distribution infrastructure, remote monitoring and greater capacity for renewable-energy integration. It also incorporated monitoring of all 131 distribution transformer stations and improved medium-voltage network control.

Renewable integration, including rooftop solar, formed part of the development. Remember the solar installations waiting on the regulatory machinery in 2023? Three years later, electricity authorities were promoting renewable integration as an important part of the island’s future. The sun had not developed a more convincing business case or employed a government-relations department. Instead, the infrastructure and policy environment had begun evolving.

The earlier solar bottleneck and the later smart-grid initiative involved different technical circumstances. The 2026 upgrade cannot establish that every installation could have connected safely in 2023. Nevertheless, the contrast remains instructive. During the diesel crisis, regulatory obstacles limited some available cleaner generation. After the mainland connection, renewable integration became part of the next development phase.

Côn Đảo had spent years sustaining an expensive isolated generation system through fuel deliveries, maintenance and financial support. Now it was building a different one. The future was beginning to look considerably less like a diesel distributor’s catalogue. That did not erase the usefulness of emergency generation, but it changed the strategic context in which such equipment operated.

The Turtles Never Asked For An Industrial Revolution

Côn Đảo’s environmental significance makes this more than an argument about electricity tariffs. The archipelago contains nationally and internationally recognised conservation habitats. Its marine environment supports sea turtles, coral ecosystems, seagrass and endangered wildlife. The IUCN’s 2025 recognition reflects meaningful conservation achievements, including turtle protection and habitat management. Against that backdrop, decades of diesel dependence create an uncomfortable contrast. The island protects extraordinary natural environments while relying on continuous fuel deliveries to sustain modern life.

The available material contains no verified evidence linking the four Cummins DKSH generators to specific ecological damage. Nor does a mainland electricity connection automatically eliminate carbon emissions. Its environmental consequences depend on the electricity generation mix, transmission infrastructure and overall consumption. Nevertheless, Vietnam Electricity identifies reduced diesel dependence as a means of cutting emissions and improving environmental conditions. That is the legitimate comparison, without inventing allegations the documentary record cannot support.

The turtles probably have no particular preference regarding the ownership structure of a generator distributor. They are presumably more concerned with their nesting beaches, the surrounding marine environment and humanity’s industrial activities. Perhaps they also wonder whether humans can occasionally organise themselves without creating an administrative or engineering clusterfuck. Reasonable creatures. (Yes, Shelly, the TCAP tortoise, made me include this). Somebody should probably put them on the infrastructure planning committee. They might not understand procurement law, but at least they can carry their homes without requiring publicly subsidised diesel deliveries.

The Project Was Completed. The Story Wasn’t.

Cummins DKSH’s contribution to the diesel supplement project has support from its own account and wider reporting. The four units added generating capacity, and the consortium completed the installation ahead of schedule. The equipment helped address a genuine supply problem before the national-grid connection. Those facts stand, irrespective of broader criticisms concerning the island’s energy arrangements.

But so do the others. Côn Đảo experienced generator failures, emergency fuel procurement and prolonged supply constraints. Regulatory obstacles prevented some renewable generation from contributing fully, while the operating economics remained dreadful. A contractor involved in the diesel installation later lost a separate public contract amid serious financial difficulties. Another infrastructure project involving the same company had attracted official scrutiny following a reservoir incident. Then the mainland connection arrived, changing the island’s long-term electricity strategy.

This is why isolated corporate case studies deserve scrutiny. They offer a narrow perspective, usually ending when the customer signs off or the ribbon falls. Everything preceding that moment becomes background, while everything afterwards conveniently becomes somebody else’s news. Infrastructure does not exist in a fucking vacuum. Financial systems, contracting relationships, environmental constraints and energy-policy decisions all shape its wider significance. The generator is only one component of the machinery. Sometimes the most revealing developments occur after the manufacturer’s photographer has gone home.

Four Generators And A Farewell To Diesel

The Côn Đảo project represents a defensible engineering achievement within a much larger story about temporary industrial solutions. Cummins DKSH supplied equipment that helped maintain electricity provision while the island awaited a more durable connection. The public record also demonstrates why that connection was necessary. High costs, equipment failures, fuel dependence and environmental concerns had burdened Côn Đảo for years. Eventually, a national-grid connection offered a different path for long-term development.

One can admire the engineering involved in an interim diesel installation without mistaking it for the destination. That is where the corporate storytelling falls short. Cummins DKSH wants readers to admire four additional generators. TCAP wants to examine why the island needed them and what the old system cost. We also want to know what happened to the contractors involved. Most importantly, why were electricity authorities already planning to reduce dependence on this generation model? A ribbon-cutting ceremony cannot answer those questions, however enthusiastically the participants shake hands beneath a freshly printed banner.

Côn Đảo provides something better: a chronological record of diesel dependence and its limitations. The history reveals an expensive, vulnerable electricity system struggling to meet growing demand. Eventually, authorities connected the island to a more extensive network. The generators may still serve a useful standby function, although the available case study does not establish their current deployment. But the broader point remains. Cummins helped keep diesel generation running on Côn Đảo, while Vietnam invested billions in infrastructure designed to reduce reliance on it.

The company got its project photograph. The island got a new electricity supply. Somewhere beneath the surrounding waters, an enormously expensive submarine cable now offers a rather more persuasive account of the island’s energy future. Its contribution may lack the visual excitement of a freshly commissioned diesel generator. Nevertheless, it tells us considerably more about where the island intends to go.

And the future arrived through a fucking cable.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Customer Corner – The Generator Files : Côn Đảo – Cummins, The Diesel Lifeline And The Island That Escaped