2017_Visiting Report -Laos

Laos has a population of around 6.5 million people and an urbanization rate of just 38.5%. There is a huge gap in city-country infrastructure. Some rural people live in mountain areas or on river banks where providing power from the grid is prohibitively expensive. Some renewable energy is used in remote areas at present, including solar panels (top left picture) and basic hydropower (bottom right picture), however large numbers of rural people still rely on candles and kerosene lamps. To solve the rural power supply problem, the Laos Ministry of Energy and Mines hopes to use solar power and small-scale hydropower and other renewable energy resources to set up a rural distributed power system

 

In March this year, Taiwan’s Green Technical Service Team and the Laos Ministry of Energy and Mines carried out onsite inspection in a riverside rural area of Luang Prabang to evaluate the area’s suitability for setting up a renewable energy  micro power grid. It is planned for the two sides to jointly establish a solar power demonstration system at a rural elementary school   to provide the school with electricity, and also display Taiwan’s green energy advantages to open up a new market for Taiwan’s green energy companies.