Heads
of state, energy ministers and top leaders from the energy industry gathered at
the World Energy Forum in Dubai this week, aiming to boost international
cooperation and exchange expertise to ensure safe and clean sustainable energy.
The United Nations General Assembly has
designated the year 2012 as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for
All.
Despite efforts to promote sustainable energy
use, 1.4 billion people do not have access to modern energy and three billion
rely on traditional biomass and coal as fuel sources, according to the UN.
In Cambodia, the majority of rural people
have access to neither renewable energies or electricity at all, data show.
“I think in the Cambodian context the
dependency of rural people on wood energy over the long term period remains
very high,” Lay Khim, team leader of the Environment and Energy Unit at the UN
Development Programme Cambodia said.
According to the 2010 Local Development
Outlook Cambodia by the UNCDF, 94 per cent of people leaving in rural areas
rely on wood, charcoal, car batteries and kerosene, while wood and charcoal
account for about 80 per cent of Cambodia’s energy consumption.
The outlook said only about 22 per cent of
the population has access to electricity, while Phnom Penh uses 85 per cent of
the country’s total electricity.
According to Lay Khim, liquefied petroleum
gas (LPG) could be a good alternative source for cooking, but he said rural
people still do not have enough access to LPG.
He said for electricity consumption, such as
for lighting or pumping water, “solar panels could be another alternative
source for rural people”, but it required the cooperation of the government and
private sectors.
Andrew Wallace, CEO of PowerTopia Cambodia,
said solar energy was appropriate for Cambodia, in contrast to wind energy.
“Cambodia has one of the lowest average wind
speeds in the world. So it is just about the worst place you could put a wind
turbine,” he said. “Whereas we think Cambodia has a very good sun, so solar is
particularly applicable.”
According to Wallace, the cost of a solar
panel in terms of dollars per watt nowadays was 10 per cent of what it was 10
years ago, while at the same time, the prices of other energy sources such as
oil, diesel and other fuels have gone up in Cambodia and worldwide.
But according to Wallace, Cambodia faces a
double problem concerning all forms of electricity. He said Cambodia’s
provinces lack the electrical infrastructure to carry the power from one
province to another. “But the other side of the problem is that even if there
was electrical infrastructure to carry the power, there is no power to carry,”
he said.
At the same time, people that may be able to
produce power such as solar generators may be reluctant to invest money if they do not have the infrastructure
to distribute it.
Anne Renzenbrink
Business & Investment Opportunities
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