provide electricity to 12,000 households in off-grid areas – will be
completed on January 31, according to officials involved with the
project.
Yiang Tal, chief of administration at the Rural Electrification Fund,
said more than 10,000 of a total of 12,000 solar home systems had
already been installed in Ratanakiri, Preah Vihear, Siem Reap and four
other provinces as part of a World Bank-funded project.
Some villagers are already using their newly installed panels.
Em Vanntha, a resident of Samrong village, in Pursat province, said he
signed up for the program two months ago and had a 50-watt panel
installed in his home in December. Previously, he relied on batteries
for electricity.
Em Vanntha said the US$5 a month he now paid for his solar home system
was less than he paid to regularly recharge old batteries or buy new
batteries.
"I think I have to pay about 700 or 800 riel [US$0.17 to $0.20] a day,
so it is affordable," he said.
About 43 per cent of Cambodia is covered by licensed power suppliers
and licenses are pending for an additional 18 per cent of the country,
according to the Electricity Authority of Cambodia.
This still leaves almost 40 per cent of the nation off the electricity
grid, but officials say the solar project is a way to reach these
areas.
"The solar home system provides access to clean power and
complementary electricity services to rural households that could not
be commercially connected by the grid, through off-grid options based
on renewable energy resources," World Bank senior operations officer
Veasna Bun wrote in an email.
Although the total cost of the 30- and 50-watt panels is about $260
and $330 per unit respectively, a $100 subsidy as part of the World
Bank loan drops the sale price for beneficiaries to about $160 and
$230 per unit, according to Veasna Bun.
Customers will have four years to pay off the panel costs, and they
will pay about $4.80 a month and $3.30 a month for 50- and 30-watt
panels, respectively, according to REF's Yiang Tal.
Soun Sun, a villager from Preah Vihear province, signed up for a
50-watt solar panel after his parents bought one from a private
company more than a year ago. He said they had never had a problem.
"I saw my parents using solar power, and I saw that it is not
difficult," Soun Sun said.
Laos-based firm Sunlabob had won the contract bid for the project and
had supplied materials and overseen installation over the past three
months, Yiang Tal said, adding that the total cost of purchasing the
panels was $4 million.
Compared to its closest neighbours, Cambodia's solar-energy potential
was huge, Sunlabob chief executive Andy Schroeter said, primarily
because there were few other options for alternative energy.
Whereas Laos had hydropower and Vietnam had wind-power potential,
Schroeter said, "Cambodia has none of these resources available. Solar
[power] has huge potential in Cambodia, especially for remote areas."
The current project was part of the government's broader plan to
provide all households with access to electricity by 2030, Yiang Tal
said.
"We've implemented only the first phase in these seven provinces," he
said. "We will continue to implement this project, and are looking for
funding."
Schroeter said Sunlabob was in talks with the government to continue
developing solar energy beyond household units, possibly expanding to
the construction of centralised systems in remote areas that
households could connect to.
It is also looking at a larger-scale solar plant that would allow
Sunlabob to sell energy to the state power company Electricite du
Cambodge.
