Energy developer to supply electricity for domestic use
Energy developer to supply electricity for domestic use
Electricite du Laos (EDL) and Rasita Power Co Ltd have signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the Nam Hinboun Downstream Hydropower Project (NHDHP), with the agreement concluded yesterday in Vientiane.
The agreement was signed by Rasita Power Co Ltd General Manager, Mr Somphone Oudone, and EDL Managing Director, Mr Sisavath Thiravong.
The agreement is to sell the generated electricity of NHDHP to EDL once the project develop ment meets the commercial operation date in 2019, an E DL official said.
NHDHP is a small-scale overflow hydropower scheme with a planned installed capacity of 15 megawatts (MW), proposed on the lower reaches of Nam Hinboun mainstream in Hinboun district, Khammuan province in central Laos. The proponent of this project development is Rasita Power Co Ltd.
“The project construction work will start next with an investment cost of about 299.94 billion kip (US$36.7 million),” Mr Somphone Oudone said yesterday.
The proposed dam locatio n is approximately 50km north of the Khammuan provincial capital. It will take a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer approach (BOOT) for a period of 50 years. Construction is expected to take 2.5 years to complete.
A handout from Rasita Power Co Ltd noted that Development of the NHDHP aims to achieve two immediate objectives which are power production for domestic supply and enhancement of local irrigation potential in the surrounding area of the Nam Hinboun plain.
Thus, once it is constructed, the NHDHP is expected to generate 79GWh of electricity per year which will be sold to EDL via the local power grid for domestic use.
This power will benefit the national economy as a whole and is also in line with the socio-economic development policy of Khammuan province.
As for the second objective, the NHDHP will provide benefits to local farmers through enhanced irrigation water pumping to the supply paddy lands, which are currently irrigated with several individual electric pumps to lift the water from the Nam Hinboun.
In many instances, pumping is very costly for farmers due to the receded water levels of several metres during the dry season.
With the NHDHP, it is expected that pumping of water will be done more efficiently and be less costly in terms of electricity payment thanks to the elevated water level.
It is estimated that this way the dam will enable an increase of irrigation capacity of paddy area by 500 hectares, while providing sufficient water for an additional 2,000 hectares of new cultivable land.
In the long term, the developer intends to construct large pipes fro m which water will be drawn and distributed to individual farmers at a much lower cost.
