[PHNOM PENH POST]
AMID the debate over hydropower and whether Cambodia should follow a
similar path to neighbouring Laos by exploiting its river systems there
is one point that government officials, environmentalists and the
private sector all seem to agree on – this country needs electricity.
On
the surface then, government confirmation this week that the Lower
Sesan 2 Dam will export electricity to Vietnam would appear to be
against this goal. After all, with some of the lowest rural
electrification rates in the region (only North Korea, East Timor and
Afghanistan rank lower), why would Cambodia export to Vietnam?
The
key problem remains electricity transmission and the costs involved.
For the project to be economically viable, developers Electricity of
Vietnam International (EVNI) and the Royal Group would appear to have
two choices. They could sell the electricity within Cambodia which would
require the development of expensive transmission lines and almost
certainly funding from third parties.
Or, the two companies
could export to neighbouring Vietnam, which has a well-developed grid
by comparison. According to the limited information we have on this
project so far, it seems the project will attempt to do a combination of
both.
Danh Serey, deputy director of the Environment Impact
Assessment Department at the Ministry of Environment, gave perhaps the
clearest official insight on Tuesday during a conference on the project
held in Phnom Penh: “Only the left-over electricity from the use of
local people will be sold to Vietnam,” he said.
Without knowing
how much will remain in Cambodia, it remains impossible to weigh the
domestic costs and benefits of the project. Mark Hanna, chief financial
officer of the Royal Group, did not respond to emailed questions on the
issue yesterday; neither did Vietnamese Embassy spokesman Le Minh Ngoc.
According
to a 2009 study by Ian Baird, a researcher at the University of
Michigan in the United States, the Lower Sesan 2 Dam promises to do
considerable harm to fish stocks by blocking key tributaries of the
Mekong River, the Sesan and Sre Pok. Meanwhile, the benefits remain less
clear.
“There are a lot of questions from the business side of things,” Baird told The Post yesterday.
For
some time now the government and a host of businesspeople have
publically stated that Cambodia’s hydropower trade-off will give the
country an improved source of lower-cost electricity with which to boost
rural development and key sectors of the economy including agriculture.
We have been told these benefits will outweigh the associated environmental and socio-economic costs of dam construction.
If
this is indeed the case, then surely there needs to be some explanation
as to how, and how much, electricity will be delivered within Cambodia.
Unfortunately, unless the necessary transmission lines are put in
place, the reality would appear to be not very much.
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