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WB, Singapore-based fund invest in Vietnam’s hydropower

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

IFC and Armstrong, with a combined stake of 36 percent, will take a 16 and 20 percent equity stake in GEC, respectively. For both it is their first investment in Vietnam’s power sector. The investment will help the company expand its hydropower portfolio and invest in other renewable energy segments, such as wind and solar power.

Based in the Central Highland province of Pleiku, GEC joined the Thanh Thanh Cong Group in 2013. With charter capital of 715 billion VND (34 million USD), GEC was one of the largest private sector hydropower players in Vietnam, with 84.4 MW of installed capacity across 15 run-of-the-river small-scale hydro power plants.

PDF REPORT Analysis on ADB Investments in the Greater Mekong – NGO Forum on ADB

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Since 1992 the Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Program encompassing the five countries and parts of China. As of 2016, over USD 14 billion has been invested by the ADB. The GMS program is another flagship endeavor by ADB under the strategic pillar entitled “regional economic integration”. Furthermore the GMS Regional Investment Framework (RIF) 2013 – 2022 serves as the master plan for over 200 projects with an estimated investment of about USD 50 billion.1

Civil society-led impact studies on ADB funded GMS projects suggest that groups mostly dependent on natural resources bear the brunt of direct disempowerment from practices such as mining, logging, involuntary resettlement and road-building among others. Once removed from their rights of access to their customary resources, the ADB presupposes that affected communities will invariably integrate into new market-based economies. Most often than not, however this is far from the local reality.

Government Told to Demand Transparency From SEZ Firms

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The companies involved in planning and building special economic zones (SEZs) in Dawei and Kyaukphyu are failing to disclose impact assessments and other information relating to the massive projects, according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

Progress on the Dawei SEZ, in southern Burma’s Tenasserim Division, has been delayed by a lack of funding, but the governments of Burma, Thailand and, more recently, Japan, are all involved in a project that looks to be moving ahead.

Advocacy Groups to Monitor Government’s Dealings with Toyo-Thai

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Mon State advocacy groups will continue to monitor the activity of the state government and Toyo Thai Corporation Public Company Limited (TTCL) after representatives met recently to discuss the gas energy investment options, according to groups in opposition to the coal-fired plant.

The groups will keep an eye on the government and TTCL due to concerns that the meeting would lead to a resumption in construction work at TTCL’s proposed coal-fired power plant project in Anndin Village.

On 10 June the representatives of TTCL, led by its chairperson, met with the state chief minister and government officials at the chief minister’s guest hall. At the meeting, they discussed the potential for a liquid propane gas bottling plant, which would provide gas for cooking instead of firewood.

Report: Coal and gas to stay cheap, but renewables still win race on costs

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Low prices for coal and gas are likely to persist, but will fail to prevent a fundamental transformation of the world electricity system over coming decades towards renewable sources such as wind and solar, and towards balancing options such as batteries.

The latest long-term forecast from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, entitled New Energy Outlook 2016, charts a significantly lower track for global coal, gas and oil prices than did the equivalent projection a year ago. Crucially, however, it also shows a steeper decline for wind and solar costs.

Sun, Partnerships Power Thailand Solar Project

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

Sitting in the courtyard of his home in Lopburi Province, 180 kilometers north of Bangkok, Saichol Thanomsak remembers what life was like for the nearly 600 people in Moo 3 Village before Asia’s largest thin-film photovoltaic solar energy project moved in nearby. Land was not fertile and jobs were scarce, forcing breadwinners to seek employment elsewhere. For those who remained, life could be grim.

“The armed forces use nearby fields for firing practice and villagers would collect artillery shells for scrap metal,” he says. “Sometimes they blew up and there were many injuries. Today, we don’t have to take such risks. Our village benefits greatly from the solar plant. It has allowed so many of us to stay home and make a decent living.”

Saving the Salween: Southeast Asia’s last major undammed river

By Nantiya Tangwisutijit

In a world of galloping hydro-power rapidly engulfing the developing world and new dams popping up in the Amazon, the Congo and along the Mekong, it is hard to find any important river left in the world, that has escaped unscathed and undammed.

The free-flowing Salween is the last important undammed river in East Asia, where endangered species including tigers and clouded leopards can still be found in remote parts of Myanmar’s ethnic Karen State.

From the snow-capped mountains of Tibet, the Salween rushes through steep gorges in Yunnan Province and flows through four of Myanmar’s ethnic states before emptying into the Andaman Sea.