Electricity production

Heavy monsoonal rains in northeastern Laos ripped through a small one-megawatt hydropower dam in Xieng Khouang province’s Pek district earlier this week, causing extensive damage and flooding rice fields and property, local residents said Wednesday. “Because of heavy rainfall and too much water, the dam couldn’t ...

The newest solar farm in the Kingdom, built in Kampong Speu by SchneiTec Renewable, has been completed and is fully operational, the Ministry of Mines and Energy announced yesterday. The farm, located on 200 hectares of land in Kampong Speu’s Oudong district, can produce 60 megawatts, ...

Lao government officials have dismissed social media reports that the Xayaboury dam in northern Laos is slowing the flow of water to downstream sections of the Mekong River. The dam is built on the run-of-river model, which does not require water to be stored, local daily ...

Major dam construction projects have become a favourite pastime of some autocratic governments, with China leading the way. But, far from protecting against water shortages, as supporters promise, large dams are contributing to river depletion and severely exacerbating parched conditions. Nowhere is this more apparent ...

Local residents and civil society organizations in Shan State will submit an open letter this week to the Union and state governments with recommendations for Shan State’s energy policy following a seminar on energy strategy held in Taunggyi from July 27-28. The open letter calls on ...

Activists representing Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam yesterday urged their respective governments to consider the lives of people living around the Mekong River when building infrastructure projects. Some of the activists urged governments to increase impact assessment initiatives, while others called for the suspension of all ongoing ...

Water levels at Southeast Asia’s largest river may be at its lowest levels in a century. Low rainfall, high temperatures and poor dam regulations are contributing to a historic low at the Mekong, affecting the region’s agriculture and fishing industries and leading to rapidly drying taps. Chinese ...

Myanmar’s launch of its first commercial solar plant last month is a step in the right direction for a country that has yet to provide more than half of its citizens with proper access to electricity. Constructed on over 836 acres of land, an area equivalent ...

The Thai government must suspend plans to buy electricity from a dam in Laos, conservationists said on Friday (Jul 26), as water levels along the kingdom’s section of Mekong river plummet to near-record lows. The Thai-built Xayaburi dam, a few hours from the northern Laos town ...

Civil society groups in three countries have called for construction to stop on a dam in southern Laos where a major collapse occurred last year, killing more than 70 people and leaving about 5,000 villagers homeless. The groups say thousands displaced by the disaster at the Xe-Pian ...