Vientiane province to build new small power plant
Vientiane province to build new small power plant
Local and foreign energy developers hope to start construction this year of a small scale hydropower plant project, Keng Luang, in Kasy district of Vientiane province once they get approval from the provincial administration authorities.
“Currently the developers are still seeking approval for the project's joint venture company establishment,” the provincial Business and Energy Division representative, Mr Houngthong Khamlasy, said.
“Once they get the licence, they will sign the concession agreement (CA) with the provincial administration officials,” Houngthong said yesterday.
“I think that the CA may be signed next month or in June.”
“Once the agreements are approved, the developers will start preparations for construction.”
The preparations include road access to the project site, workers dormitory and electric transmission line installation.
He said the Keng Luang construction project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017 or early 2018.
The developers have now finished the feasibility studies for the project which were started in November 2012 and they recently got certification on the environmental protection assessment from the province.
The project will require an investment of about 256 billion kip (US$32 million). It will have three generators with an installed capacity of around 5 megawatts (MW) each.
The project developers are Electricite du Laos (EDL) holding 60 percent, a local company with 10 percent and the remaining 30 percent is being held by a Chinese company.
The plant will able to generate about 68GWh of energy per year which will be sold to EDL for local supply.
There is no need for community resettlement with this project because it is located far from any residential areas. It will, however, impact some of their farms, about 10 hectares in total.
The government is currently promoting the rapid development of small and medium-d power plants for domestic supply in order to reduce the need for imported electricity.
These small and medium-d power plants are free of some of the environmental impacts associated with large-scale construction as some of them are the 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 river. This produces relatively little change in the channel and flow, as well as minimising the impact on fish migration, water quality and wildlife habitats.
So far there have been 14 potential hydrop ower projects in Vientiane province that have seen the signing of memorandums of understanding with the provincial administration.
The province now has hydropower plants with a total installed capacity of about 302MW.
Laos still has many other hydropower plants with the potential to sell carbon credits, and energy developers have already been contracted to sell these credits to other overseas companies.
Twenty-seven power plants are currently operational with a combined installed capacity of about 3,304MW in Laos.
Laos is aiming for total installed capacity of about 12,000MW by 2025, a ministry report has noted.
The abundant resources of the Mekong River and its tributaries give Laos the potential to produce more than 25,000MW.
