Hongsa power plant 45 percent complete
Hongsa power plant 45 percent complete
Hongsa Power Company Limited has built 45 percent of basic infrastructure and facilities at the 1,878MW lignite-fired power plant in Hongsa district, Xayaboury province, after work began in 2009.
According to the Laophathana newspaper it will be able to start selling electricity to Thailand on schedule in 2015.
The 450 families who had to move from the project site are now housed in new, purpose built accommodation.
They will be encouraged to take up permanent occupations such as growing rubber trees, working as drivers for the power plant, farming, raising fish, keeping livestock, giving massages, and making handicrafts.
The project will ensure that the relocated families are able to put poverty behind them over the next three years, and will help them to boost their incomes by 150 percent within 10 years from 2012 to 2022.
The project began with a survey for lignite in 1994. It consists of two phases, the mining of lignite to supply the plant and the generation of electricity for sale.
Road access to the project site and a dam have been built, along with houses and facilities for the 450 relocated families.
The company will also build two reservoirs and a pipeline to supply water to the plant, all of which is expected to be complete within 30 months at a cost of about 667 billion kip.
The project shareholders are Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Public Company and Banpu Power Ltd of Thailand, which each hold 40 percent of the shares, and the Lao Holding State Enterprise which holds a 20 percent share.
The lignite-fired power plant will cost about 30.2 trillion kip (US$3.7 billion) to build in total, with 70 percent financed by loans and the remaining 30 percent provided by the company.
Over the 25 years of the concession period granted to the company, Thailand will receive 1,473MW of electricity and Laos 100MW. The remaining power gener ated will be used within the project.
It takes 14.3 million tonnes of lignite each year to produce this amount of electricity, coming from reserves of 577.4 million tonnes.
vientiane times
