Don Weinland
The Phnom Penh Post
A Thai energy firm has completed a study for a 1,800-megawatt coal power plant in Koh Kong province, and had asked for Prime Minister Hun Sen's support in furthering the project, government officials confirmed yesterday.
The plant would be the largest power generator in the energy-starved Kingdom.
Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding would conduct an environmental impact assessment on the plant, Hun Sen's personal assistant, Eang Sophalleth, said on Monday after the prime minister met Ratchaburi chief executive Nopal Milin Thang Goon at the Peace Palace.
The Thai company, in which a controlling stake is held by the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, would sell power to Cambodia at “special tariff” rates, Eang Sophalleth said. The remaining power would be sold to Thailand.
Eang Sophalleth said Hun Sen welcomed the plan, but declined to give investment figures for the project.
A spokeswoman at Ratchaburi's Bangkok office also declined to comment on the project yesterday.
Cambodia's current power capacity was about 500 megawatts, the Ministry of Industry Mines and Energy's Toch Sovanna said in November, adding that by 2025 it would need 3,000 megawatts.
The high cost of energy was the biggest deterrent to industry investment in Cambodia, Chheng Kimlong, a business and economics lecturer at the University of Cambodia, said.
“It's about twice as expensive, or even higher, compared to neighbouring countries like Thailand and Vietnam,” he said yesterday.
A coal-fired plant, however, was not a form of renewable energy and the government should carefully consider the potential environmental impact of the project, Chheng Kimlong said.
2 comments:
No coal burning plant along cambodia's coast. It is a bad idea. They will kill our tourism industry.
siem can't do this in their country so they do it in camobdia. i hope the wind blow the black smoke and acid rain back to bangcock and flood it with acid rain from this coal plant, you know!
cambodia only want a clean source of energy so people don't have to live in fear from the harmful effect of industrial waste like this, really!
watch out for black lung disease from coal plant like this, ok!
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