Luang Prabang to trial Nam Khan 2 dam next month
Luang Prabang to trial Nam Khan 2 dam next month
Energy generation at the Nam Khan 2 dam in Luang Prabang province is expected to get underway in September after the reservoir that supplies water to the dam began filling in April.
“We have finished all the hard work and are now making final checks of the details,” Deputy Project Manager Mr Thongphanh Thongsa said on Friday.
The dam is on the Khan River and is being built by a Chinese company, Sinohydro Corporation.
Construction began in 2011 in Xieng Ngeun district and “is now 99.44 percent complete”, he said. “Based on current progress, we will start testing energy generation on September 25.”
The testing will take about three months or until the end of December, after which the dam will be handed over to Electricite du Laos (EDL).
“We plan to have a handover ceremony on December 31,” Mr Thongphanh said.
Following the handover ceremony, project developers will consider a date for the official energy generation opening ceremony.
“We can't say when power generation will officially begin as it depends on government officials from Laos and China,” he said.
The Nam Khan 2 dam is a government project that will be managed and operated by EDL. The project involves total investment of about 2.4 trillion kip (US$308 million) which has been borrowed from the Exim Bank of China.
It has an installed capacity of 130 megawatts (MW) and will be able to generate 558 GWh of electricity per year that will be transmitted via a 115kV transmission line to a substation in Xiengngeun district to supply the northern provinces and Vientiane.
The dam will particularly benefit people in northern Laos and remote areas who are still waiting for electricity to be supplied to their villages.
The large reservoir will be developed as a tourist attraction, which will be a boost to the local economy.
Potential environmental impacts will be lessened under an agreement between EDL and gas, petroleum and energy producer Gazprom Marketing and Trading Singapore Pte., Ltd. In 2012 they drew up an Emissions Reduction Purchase Agreement under which Gazprom will buy carbon credits from the project via a clean development mechanism.
Laos also has many other hydropower plants with the potential to sell carbon credits, and energy developers have already been contracted to sell carbon credits to other overseas companies.
The government is promoting the rapid development of power plants for local supply in a bid to cut electricity imports.
Twenty-seven power plants are currently operational in Laos with a combined installed capacity of 3,304MW.
Laos is aiming for a total installed capacity of about 12,000M W by 2025, a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines states.
The abundant resources of the Mekong River and its tributaries give Laos the potential to produce more than 25,000MW of electricity.
