Laos has outdated power facilities, with most areas being mountainous. Many villages often experience power outages, unstable voltage, and even some rural and remote mountainous areas still lack power supply. Laos has good lighting conditions and abundant solar energy resources, but it only accounts for a small portion of the country's power supply, which can be said to have great development potential. At the same time, it also has the characteristic of supplementing the insufficient electricity of hydropower during dry seasons. With the implementation of the the Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asian countries, Chinese new energy enterprises have increased their investment and construction efforts, especially in the field of clean energy.

Recently, CPIH and its partners signed a memorandum of cooperation for the Oudomxay New Energy Base project with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Energy and Mines, and the Oudomxay Provincial Government in the capital of Laos, Vientiane.

Oudomxay Province is located in the northernmost part of Laos, with abundant resources such as photovoltaic, hydropower, and wind power. It is vast and sparsely populated, making it suitable for the construction and development of new energy. The Oudomxay New Energy Base Project is the proposed supporting power supply project for the old and middle 500KV transmission lines of China Southern Power Grid, covering an area of 44900 hectares. It is planned to vigorously develop new energy projects such as photovoltaic in this area, and supply power to China Southern Power Grid through the old and middle interconnected lines, so as to send the power back to China for consumption.

This project is in line with the the Belt and Road Initiative. After completion, it will help ease the tight situation of power supply in the Southern Power Grid region, and help Laos to transform its resource advantages into economic benefits and promote sustainable economic development. The signing of the memorandum of cooperation for this project marks the official launch of the Udomxay New Energy Base project. The first phase of the project will build a 500-1000MW photovoltaic power plant, which is planned to start construction in early 2024 and achieve full capacity production by 2025.Editor/Ma Xue