Regional officials discuss energy cooperation plans
Regional officials discuss energy cooperation plans
The Lao government expects to increase the share of renewable energy to 30 percent of total consumption and 10 percent bio-fuels by 2025, a senior energy official said at a regional forum in Vientiane on Sunday.
“Under the directions of the government, the Ministry of Energy and Mines has enthusiastically joined with other concerned parties to establish an Energy Efficiency and Conservation plan in order to reach their goals,” the Director General of the Energy Policy and Planning Department Dr Daovong Phonekeo said.
The Asean Plus Three New and Renewable Energy (NRE) and Energy Efficiency and Conservation (EE&C) meeting is organised yearly to discuss the development of new and renewable energy.
Senior energy representatives of the Asean country members and their dialogue partners, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea presented their previous developments and implementation plans for new and renewable energy in their countries.
Dr Daovong said the gathering enabled each of the Asean member countries to update their recent activities on NRE and EE&C, share their progress and difficulties they had faced since the implementation at the beginning of the year and also to outline their future plans.
The Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion's Deputy Director General Mr Chantho Milattanapheng told Vientiane Times that this was a technical meeting between senior energy officials from Asean countries and their partners, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
“A technical meeting is targeted towards technical cooperation and capacity building for developing countries in the region, in particular Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia,” he said.
Laos was in critical need of personnel capacity building to supply the demand in the energy development sector, he added.
Mr Chantho said the government had initially set its commitment policies on the use of renewable energy since 2011 with the hopes of promoting solar energy, wind power, biogas and targeting construction of small-scale hydropower plants with an installed capacity of less than 15 MW.
“However, the development of these energy sources needs a large amount of capital to be invested in the research and development process with the prices of the produce to be carefully looked over and compared to the investment capital,” he said.
To promote investment in biogas, Laos is working on drafting regulations to use as a detailed guide and reference with the hopes of officially using it in the years to come.
The government's hopes to extend electricity to 90 percent of Lao households by 2030, and they also hope to reduce energy demand by 10 percent in the same year.
The 10th Asean Plus Three NRE and EE&C meeting was co-arranged by the Lao Institute of Renewable Energy Promotion, Asean Centre for Energy (ACE) and Institute of Energy Economics of Japan with Asean Plus Three.
vientiane times
