Energy

One hour west of Cambodia’s capital an array of iridescent panels stretches between palm trees, glistening through dust clouds from a neighbouring highway. A year ago it was a barren expanse of chalky soil. Now it’s Cambodia’s largest solar farm. The joint Cambodian-Chinese project, which came ...

More than 100 Lao families who were moved to a resettlement village four years ago to make way for construction of the Nam Tha 1 Dam hydropower project in Luang Namtha province have run out of water amid a worsening drought, local sources say. Water sources ...

A simple feasibility analysis shows the Mekong River in Cambodia would benefit from floating solar plants coupled with storage, rather than more hydro. Cambodia’s Great Lake, the Tonle Sap and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are suffering harmful impacts from the suppression of the Mekong River’s annual flood ...

Just over a week ago, many people in Thailand, particularly those in highrises, were thrown into panic when their buildings were swaying. They didn’t know at the time that a strong earthquake had just hit inside Lao borders near Nan’s district of Chaloem Phrakiat. The shallow ...

On a remote bend of the Mekong River in northern Laos, where its muddy waters make a hard right turn through steep verdant hills, the 330-odd residents of Houaygno village are bracing for an imminent exodus. Vietnam’s state-owned PetroVietnam Power has chosen the site for the ...

Damage to property in Hongsa and Xaysathan districts of Xayaboury province has been estimated at over 2 billion kip after at least 300 families were affected by an earthquake last week. Director of the province’s Labour and Social Welfare Department, Mr Nouphone Xaypanyachith, said two earthquakes ...

On Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, record low water levels have plunged fishing communities into crisis but with warnings of “severe drought”, there are concerns the situation will get even worse. “Every day we can only find about one or two kilogrammes (two or four pounds) of fish, ...

The building of large dams has increasingly run into opposition in established democracies but gained momentum in autocratic states, which often tout their benefits for combating droughts and water shortages. But, as the Mekong basin illustrates, giant upstream dams can contribute to river depletion and ...

River systems help sustain lives and livelihoods. But, thanks to excessive damming and drastic overuse of their water resources, some rivers are drying up before reaching the sea. Nowhere is this truer than Asia. Building large dams has increasingly run into grassroots opposition in established democracies ...

The government will light another 4000 villages across the country in the second phase of its electrification plan, said U Thura Aung Ko, chief engineer and project manager of the Ministry of Electricity and Energy. He added the agency has begun inviting tenders to supply equipment for ...