Construction has begun on a US$1 billion hydroelectric power plant in Cambodia with Chinese investment to facilitate the use of renewable energy in the Southeast Asian country as the effects of global conflicts limit developing countries’ access to traditional fuel sources.
In early April, work began on the Upper Tatay pumped-storage hydroelectric project in the hilly southwestern province of Koh Kong —the so-called future “green energy bank” for Cambodia’s national grid. The project is a “large-scale rechargeable battery system” with an installed capacity of one gigawatt.
According to Jayant Menon, a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, the investment was significant for Cambodia, given its relatively small economy. This was also because Cambodia, like other developing countries, is concerned about the price and availability of imported fuel due to problems in the Middle East and the lack of domestic refining.
Chinese investors also helped build the $2 billion Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville expressway in Cambodia and the airport that opened last year near Phnom Penh . The state-owned China National Heavy Machinery Corporation is developing the Upper Tatai project.
China-built power plants have helped increase Cambodia’s electricity access rate—the percentage of the population with reliable access to electricity at home—from approximately 50% to 96% since 2010. The plant will provide “stable integration” of intermittent solar and wind power.
