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Small-scale hydro plant to boost national power grid
A local, small-scale energy developer, National Consulting Group, will establish a power company in Vientiane and an office branch in Saravan province to operate the Houay Por hydropower plant construction project.
“We will launch the company and office branch within the next few weeks,” group President Mr Somdet Meunsaveng said yesterday.
The establishment of the company and office branch follows the signing of a Project Development Agreement (PDA) between the group and Saravan provincial authorities last week.
Mr Somdet said the group would collaborate with a construction company from South Korea on the construction of the plant and ensure that the design meets international standards.
The project will require an investment of about 134 billion kip (US$16.7 million), with construction to start by the end of this year and be completed in 2015. The project site is located in Lao-ngam district.
The plant will have a generating capacity of 5 megawatts (MW) and will generate about 35 to 60 kWh per year, “using two generators that we plan to import from France,” Mr Somdet said.
The electricity will be sold to Electricite du Laos (EDL) for distribution through the national power grid. “However, we have not negotiated a purchase price or tariffs yet,” Mr Somdet said.
Saravan provincial Energy Section Head Mr Sangthong Inthapakdy said the group and EDL would complete negotiations on a power purchase price within three months of the signing of the PDA.
“The group has recently presented an initial price of about 7 US cents per kWh to EDL,” Mr Sangthong said.
The group is obligated to start some construction work or preparation for the plant after the PDA is signed.
“If nothing has been done within the next three months, the group has to report the reasons for the delay to us,” he said.
So far the group has completed a feasibility study, including social and environment assessments, and an initial plant design.
He said the group will own the project for 50 years and will be able to extend the agreement after that time.
Recently the province signed PDAs for three small-scale hydropower projects with generating capacities of 5MW each.
Currently, Saravan has two main hydropower plants – the 45 MW Xeset1 and the 76MW Xeset 2.
“However, the province uses only 9MW and the rest is exported to other provinces or to Thailand,” he said.
Currently, the province has 112 villages, or 58,512 households, almost 68 percent of which have electricity that is provided either by local suppliers or imported from Vietnam.
“The amount of electricity that is imported is very small because there are only a few villages that the national power grid has not reached,” he said.
Government targets dictate that at least 80 percent of the population will have access to the national electricity grid by 2015, and 90 percent by 2020. As of last October, about 72 percent of households had access.
The government is promo-ting the rapid development of small and medium sized power plants, with generating capacities ranging from 2-100MW, for local supply to reduce the need for imported electricity.
At least two new power plants will be opened in Laos each year between now and 2020. In 2006 the country had only 10 power plants with a total capacity of 700MW but now has 14 plants with a total capacity of 2,540MW.
vientiane times
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