Renewable energy production

Following a meeting with a visiting U.S. diplomat on Wednesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary of State Ouch Borith said the U.S. shares Cambodia’s concerns about a controversial hydropower dam Laos is planning to build on the Mekong River. Cambodia and Vietnam both fear that the ...

Amid a lawsuit and a chorus of dissent, developers of the first lower Mekong mainstream hydropower project, the massive Xayaburi dam, have quietly submitted a long-anticipated, multimillion-dollar redesign plan, the Post has learned. What exactly has been changed about the 1,260-megawatt dam, which environmentalists contend will ...

In what could be the latest sign that authorities are pushing ahead with the Areng Valley hydropower dam, Vietnam Military Telecommunications Group has sent engineers into the valley in Koh Kong province to scout for locations where its local subsidiary, Metfone, could build mobile phone ...

The Willowbrook Company, a New York-based renewable energy development company, is seeking support from Cambodia to build a 250-megawatt solar power plant, the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Friday. Edward J.Sappin, visiting chief executive officer of the Willowbrook Company, urged the support from ...

A prominent rights group on Monday wrote to Minister of Interior Sar Kheng, calling on him to remind ministries and local authorities that demonstrators do not require their permission to hold public gatherings. ...

Phnom Penh security forces on Sunday blocked activists from riding their bicycles around the city to promote their campaign against the pending construction of a hydropower dam in Koh Kong province, claiming the organizers failed to ask City Hall for permission. The NGO Mother Nature has ...

The sixth Chinese-built hydropower plant, located in the Koh Kong province of   southwestern Cambodia, has begun producing electricity after more than four years of construction, the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation (CHMC) said in a  statement  on Thursday. CHMC started to develop the 246-megawatt Tatay River Hydropower Plant in 2010. The dam comprises three generators, each capable of producing 82 megawatts, the statement said. ...

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that hydropower development along the Mekong River could conflict with other benefits. “You have this tension between the purposes, unless they’re approached thoughtfully and correctly,” he told foreign ministers from the Lower Mekong Initiative gathered in Nay Pyi ...

A conservation group may release 20 baby Siamese crocodiles into the Areng Valley amid an ongoing stand-off between villagers and a Chinese firm over the construction of a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province. Tuy Serey Vathana, country directory at Fauna and Flora International, said ...

Discussion about hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia tends to focus on two aspects, both negative. One is an overdependence on Chinese investment, and the other is a relatively disproportionate focus on the environmental impacts of hydroelectric power. Chinese Influence Most hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia are associated ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...

Phnom Penh’s first solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building ...

Officials involved in negotiating compensation offers between the developers of the Lower Sesan II dam and affected villagers have kept a portion of the money paid out to 12 families for themselves, according to an official. Duong Pov, Stung Treng provincial administration director, claimed that a ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

The Lao government has agreed to a lengthy public consultation process with its neighbors before building a controversial hydropower dam on the Mekong River, within 2 km of the Cambodian border, according to the environmental group WWF. Laos announced the 256-MW Don Sahong dam last year ...

The Lao government said yesterday that it would have the controversial Don Sahong dam undergo a formal process of prior consultation – a decision that will probably delay the project further. “The government has already demonstrated that it is committed to developing the Don Sahong project ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...

A top court in Thailand agreed on Tuesday to hear a lawsuit brought by villagers against the country’s decision to purchase power from the planned Xayaburi mega dam in neighboring Laos, which green groups say could threaten the region’s environment and food security. Overruling a lower ...

Hundreds of families due to be displaced by the planned 108-MW Stung Chhay Areng dam were called to a meeting Tuesday with provincial authorities, who presented a plan for relocation and then distributed gifts of shrimp paste and MSG. Heng Samnang, a staffer for local NGO ...

The army created a new platoon on Monday to guard an area near the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province, where hundreds of ethnic minority residents have fiercely resisted plans by a Chinese company to build a hydropower dam that would flood their ancestral lands. The ...

The National Assembly plans to summon three ministers for questioning over compensation to families who will be displaced or harmed by development projects, officials from the National Assembly said Sunday. Cheam Yeap, a senior CPP lawmaker, said the National Assembly would write to Environment Minister Say ...

Malaysia’s Mega First Corp Bhd says it increased spending on a controversial dam project in Laos and a new rubber project in Cambodia by 45 percent to MYR 50.4 million ($15.7 million) in 2013. Project development expenditure on the Don Sahong dam on the Cambodian border ...

A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...

Cambodia’s energy minister allayed concerns in parliament over inadequate compensation offered to villagers who face relocation for a proposed China-backed dam on a Mekong River tributary, saying the government has allocated to villagers more than four times the area taken over for the project. Minister of ...