Electricity production

Mekong Region countries like Cambodia should reconsider their plans to expand hydropower dams and coal plants, as the costs of alternative energy sources, such as solar power, are rapidly falling, a U.S. think-tank said, while improved regional grid connections can also ease growing energy demand. ...

The floodgates of the largest and most controversial dam project in the country’s history officially closed yesterday at an inauguration ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who took aim at environmentalists, ambassadors and NGOs in a wide-ranging speech. ...

Stung Treng provincial authorities held a meeting with the Mines and Energy Ministry on Wednesday to find ways to convince people refusing to leave their homes near the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam to accept compensation and vacate their land before Prime Minister Hun Sen ...

Global Purify Power (GPP), a joint venture behind $400 million worth of solar powered projects, started groundbreaking work on Friday with more than $10 million worth of investment in Kampong Speu province. ...

A $100 million electricity and fresh water deal for a joint-venture between Cambodia’s LYP Group and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) will not be signed as expected when Prime Minister Hun Sen meets his Thai counterpart Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha today for bilateral talks, ...

Solar home systems are an appropriate solution to provide affordable, reliable and clean electricity in rural Cambodia, and the Green Microfinance Programme assists villagers to take out loans to purchase them. ...

Ten representatives of 143 indigenous families affected by the development of the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in Stung Treng province gathered yesterday to submit a petition to the Interior Ministry and the Prime Minister’s cabinet. ...

Representatives of holdout families who are refusing to evacuate two Stung Treng province villages that will be flooded by the Lower Sesan II dam traveled to Phnom Penh to petition the Mines and Energy Ministry for help on Friday. ...

Rice millers in Battambang province are seeing red due to an erratic power supply affecting their production and causing them to lose money. ...

In Svay Rieng province’s Bati commune, electricity poles and wires sprung up five years ago in Thnanh village but power still has not run through them, leaving villagers reliant upon batteries and most recently, solar panels. ...

Cambodia’s first large-scale solar power project is still in the trial testing stage, but is expected to be fully operational at the end of this month. ...

Villagers embroiled in a battle against the government and builders of the Lower Sesan II Dam in Stung Treng province yesterday demanded that provincial officials vacate a local pagoda they have occupied as an office. ...

Villagers living near the Lower Sesan II dam in Stung Treng province are being stopped and searched at a road checkpoint by officials fearing possible “terrorism” attacks on the controversial dam. ...

The government is to ask Thailand for help to build a hydropower plant in the border province of Koh Kong. ...

A second road leading to the embattled communities of Sre Kor commune, where defiant villagers continue to live through floods caused by dam construction, has been blocked by Stung Treng provincial authorities.​ ...

Families in Stung Treng province that returned to a village near the Lower Sesan II dam after floodwaters temporarily receded are being warned they will be forced again to flee when a far worse deluge comes as all of the new dam’s gates are shut. ...

About 100 ethnic minority members were forced to trek 12 km on Wednesday out of a Stung Treng village on the verge of being flooded by a new hydroelectric dam after authorities blockaded a road. ...

Since Sunday, Military Police and provincial police officials have been stopping outsiders from entering Sesan district’s Srekor and Kbal Romea villages as 200 people – mostly ethnic minorities from all over Cambodia – continued to gather in defiance of the blockade for a series of events, including ...

The temporary detention and questioning of 24 people travelling to the reservoir area of the Lower Sesan II dam prompted a three-hour confrontation between Military Police and provincial police officials and more than 100 villagers in Stung Treng’s Kbal Romea village yesterday. ...

Rescuers armed with speed boats and emergency supplies have been deployed to two Stung Treng province villages where residents remain despite expected flooding as the country’s largest hydropower dam undergoes testing. ...

The doors of the Lower Sesan II dam were closed on Saturday for a monthlong test run, forcing more than 100 families holding out in Stung Treng’s Srekor and Kbal Romea communes to prepare for floods. Since the doors’ closure on Saturday morning, water levels ...

An official in Stung Treng province said there was no way to grant a last-minute reprieve requested on Thursday by villagers whose homes could be flooded within days once testing of the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam begins on Saturday. ...

The Ministry of Environment has announced its support for a new 10-megawatt solar power development project in the coastal province of Kep to be spearheaded by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a South Korea-based organisation set up by the UN in 2012 to chart ...

Stung Treng provincial authorities have vowed to demolish the Sre Pok Bridge ahead of the testing of the Lower Sesan II dam – which will submerge a number of villages – and warned that police will be deployed should villagers protest. ...