Developer soon to build second Nam Long dam
Developer soon to build second Nam Long dam
Local small-scale energy developer Nam Long Power Co Ltd plans to start construction of a second hydropower plant and its expansion project on the Long River in Long district, Luang Namtha province in the next five months.
“Construction will start in September or October or after the wet season ends, with an investment cost of about 256 billion kip (US$32 million),” Nam Long Power Co Ltd President Mr Bounleuth Luangpaseuth said.
It will be a joint investment between Luangpaseuth Construction Sole Co Ltd (LCC), which will hold 80 percent, and Electricite du Laos (EDL), which will hold the remaining 20 percent.
“Currently we are in the design elaboration and detailed environmental reporting phase,” Mr Bounleuth said on Wednesday.
The hydro plant will be known as the Nam Long 2, and its expansion project will be Nam Long 3. The project will be about 4km from the Nam Long 1 plant.
The company is now working on an access road to the project site and preparing to start clearing the construction area. “We have finished building a camp to house the workers,” he said.
The company is building the second hydro plant because it has made a considerable outlay on the first plant, mainly for construction equipment, heavy machinery, road access, and installing power lines.
It will use this equipment and machinery to build the second plant when the first one has been completed.
The second project will have an installed capacity of 12 megawatts (MW), including 8MW for Nam Long 2 and 4MW for its expansion, the Nam Long 3. “The project is expected to be complete by 2015,” he said.
The construction of the Nam Long 1 plant is progressing well and is now about 95 percent complete. It will start trial energy generation within the next two months. It is now storing water to begin the electricity generation trial by June.
The trial generation will allow the company to see if all the systems within the power plant are working well. Officials from the Ministry of Energy and Mines will come to observe and check the operation of the plant before approving it for supply.
After it receives approval, a date for commercial operations will be set, at which point it will begin supplying power to EDL.
Construction of the Nam Long 1 hydropower plant began in December 2011. The project is worth about 109 billion kip (US$13.7 million) with an installed capacity of 5MW.
The first hydro plant is a run-of-river scheme and the second project will be of a similar nature. Run-of-river dams mean power generation depends on the immediate river water flows. The dams or weirs are only about 7 metres in height.
The projects are free of the environmental impacts associated with large-scale projects due to their run-of-river design, which does not require a large dam or storage reservoir.
Instead, run-of-river projects generate electricity by diverting only part of the stream. This produces relatively little change in the stream channel and flow, and minimises the impact on fish migration, water quality, and wildlife habitats.
The government is promoting the rapid development of small and medium d power plants for local supply, aiming to reduce the need for imported electricity.
vientiane times
