COUNTRY PROFILE

Key Indicators

HISTORY

The earliest recorded history of Cambodia starts with the Funan dynasty. The Kingdom of Funan was situated in what is know today as the southern province of Takeo and lasted for a period of 600 years. This dynasty gave way to the powerful Angkor Empire that was eventually responsible for establishing the Khmer Kingdom, as we know it today. The following generation of powerful king that belonged to the Angkorian dynasty to have come from India and Javanese part of today’s Indonesia. The dynasty reigned for a period of 650 years, and their empire covered much of South East Asia, as we know it today. Their territory stretched from Burma, which lies, to the South Sea and further north, right up to Laos.

Khmer kings, during this golden period of rule, built the most ornate and extensive temples or prasats known to mankind. These spectacular constructions were built throughout the kingdom, Angkor Wat, is of course the most famous. Amongst the most successful of the Ankorean kings were Preag Bat Jaya Varman II, Preah Bat Indra Varman I, Preah Bat Surya VarmanII, and Preah Bat Jaya Varman VII. Besides building the most majestic prasats on earth, they were also responsible for huge agricutural feats of engineering which included sophisticated irrigation systems, great water reservoirs, and countless canal systems that guaranteed food transport. Some of these systems are still in use even today. Angkor became the capital of a great kingdom and the center for government, education, religion, and commerce. However, in the late 13^th century a sudden shift of power took place. Angkor was invaded and eventually, completely ravaged. The entire population and wealth of a once proud civilization was abandoned and covered by tropical forest.

Following the abandonment of Angkor, Cambodia’s capital population migrated south to Long Vek, then futher to Ou Dong, and eventually to Phnom Penh. The destruction of the mighty Angkorian capital also caused a decline, adaptation and eventual replacement of Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism became the national religion. From the 15^th century to the 17^th century, Cambodia was often encroached on by neighboring Thai and Vietnamese forces, They resisted, but eventually succumbed to a European colonial power.

In 1863, Preah Bat Norodom signed a Protectorate Treaty which France, which consequently placed Cambodia under French rule for the next 90 years. After the death of Preah Bat Norodom in 1904, Preah Bat Sisowath, cousin to King Norodom, was subsequently crowned as the new king of Cambodia. However, the throne returned to the Norodom family with the following coronation of Preah Bat Norodom Sihanouk, our current monarch, in 1941. At that time he was only 18 years old.

Shortly after that, during the Second World War in 1945, the Japanese ousted the French. King Norodom Sihanouk took the opportunity to free Cambodia from foreign control. For many years following, was majesty campaigned tirelessly for this objective, and was eventually rewarded. Cambodian was granted its independence in 1953. The Independence ceremony marked the end of 90 years of French protectorate rule. In 1959, King Norodom Sihanouk abdicated the throne, turning the position of Kingship over to his father, Preah Bat Norodom Soramarith. Then, Prince Norodom Sihanouk became the Head of State and ruled the government.

From 1950 through to 1970, the Kingdom of Cambodia was self-sufficient and prosperous, It excelled areas of development. Cambodia was then known as the Jewel of the Orient. Unfortunately, the prosperity was to be short lived. As was started to escalate in Vietnam, Cambodia’s borders increasingly became the targets of American and Vietnamese aggression. On March 18^th, 1970, General Lon Nol, backed by the Americans, overthrew the Head of State Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Consequently, Cambodia became deeply involved in the war, fighting against the Communist Khmer fighting faction, the Khmer Rouge. Lon Nol’s control over Cambodia’s government lasted for a period of barely five years, being eventually overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, headed by pol pot on the 17^th of April 1975.

History repeated itself once again as Pol Pot invaded. The entire population evacuated the city leaving a once vibrant capital in ruin and decay. After the evaluation. The Khmer Rouge tricked Prince Norodom Sihanouk in to returning to Phnom Penh to be Head of State, however, he was not allowed to carry out his responsibilities as Head of State and he was not allowed to leave the Palace walls. In effect, he was placed under house arrest. The Khmer Rouge then proceeded to implement a “reign of terror” on the Cambodia peoples. People were brutally forced to work as slaves in the rice fields. These people had to endure long periods of hard, painful labor while effectively being starved at the same time Pol Pot’s Kampuchean regime established forced labor camps, and tortured, killed or starved an estimated 2 million people, including women and children.

In 1979. The People’s Republic of Kampuchea, supported by Vietnamese, liberated the capital. This presented the opportunity for the country to become reestablished once again. Throughout the 1980’s and with the assistance of the Vietnamese, the common people rebuilt their economy. In 1989, the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia and the country was re-named “State of Cambodia”. In 1991, the Paris Peace Accords created the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC), which was backed by some 22,000 United Nations troops to prepare the first, free and fair general election. In may 1993, UNTAC supervised Cambodia’s first general election. Preah Bat Norodom Sihanouk was reinstated as King. Since that time, two further general elections have been held in Cambodia. The second general election was held in July 1998, while the last general election was held in July 2003.

Today, the Kingdom of Cambodia is once again a peaceful place to visit. Cambodia now incorporates a Parliamentary Government system, with His Majesty Preah Bat Norodom Sihanuok Varman, King and Head of State; Samdech Chea Sim, President of the Senate; H.R.H Samdech Krom Preah Norodom Ranarithddh, President of the National Assembly and Samdech Hun Sen, Prime Minister. His Majesty effectively remains the symbol of national unity for the people of Cambodia who hold him dear to their hearts.

GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE

Cambodia has a land area of 181,035 square kilometers in the southwestern part of the Indochina peninsula and lies completely within the tropics with its southernmost points slightly more than 10 above the Equator. The country’s capital city is Phnom Penh. International borders are shared with Thailand and the Lao People’[s Democratic Republic on the west and on the north, and the socialist Republic of Vietnam on the east and southeast. The country is bounded on the southwest by the Gulf Thailand. The country has a coastline of 440 km and extensive mangrove forest, some of which are relatively undisturbed.

The dominant features of the Cambodia landscape are the large, almost centrally located, Tonle Sap (Great Lake) and the Bassac River and the Mekong River system, which cross the country from the north to the south. Surrounding the Central Plains, which cover quarters of the country’s area, are the more densely forested and sparsely populated highlands comprising: the Elephant Mountains and Cardamom Mountains of the southwest and western regions; the Dangrek Mountain of the north adjoining the Korat Plateau of Thaiand; and the Ratanakiri Plateau and Chlong Highlands on the eact merging with the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

Cambodia’s climate, like that of the rest of Southeast Asia, is dominated by the monsoon, which are know as tropical wet and dry because of the ditinctly marked seasonal differences. The monsoon brings the rainy season from mid-may to mid-September or to early October, and the northeast monsoon flow of drier and cooler air lasts from early November to March and then hotter air prevails in April and early May. Temperatures are fairly uniform through out the Tonle Sap Basin area, with only small variations from the average annual mean of round 25 Centigrade January is the coldest month and April is the warmest. Total annual rainfall average is between 100 and 150 centimeters with the heaviest fall in the southeast. The relative humidity is high at night throughout the year, usually exceeding 90%. During the daytime in the dry season, humidity averages about 50% or slightly lower but it may remain about 60% in the rainy period.

GOVERNMENT

The Constitution defines the royal role as being one of a symbol of unity and permanence of the Nation and guarantee of national independence sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom. The King is the head of state for life. The King reigns but does not govern. He appoints the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. In the absence of the King, the chairman of the senate assumes the senate assumes the power as acting Head of State.

The Cambodia parliament is composed of 2 houses, a lower house, which is also called the National Assembly, and an upper house that is commonly referred to as the Senate. Draft laws require adoption by both houses before they become laws. The National Assembly and Senate members or the Prime Minister have the right to propose laws. The Senate consists of 61 senators and meets twice a year with each session lasting for three months. The National Assembly is elected for five years and consists of 123 members all of whom are elected by universal secret ballot. According to official results of the July 27, 2003 election announced by the National Election Committee, CPP holds 73 seats. FUNCINPEC holds 26 seats, and sam Rainsy Party holds 24 seats. The ordinary session of the National Assembly is held twice per year with each session lasting at least three months. The Council of Ministers is the Royal Government of Cambodia. The Royal Government is the executive organ of the State led by Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen. The RGC, with its armed forces and is administration govern the State, is in charge of the overall national policies and programs implementation, and is accountable to the Parliament. The Prime Minister is assisted by two deputy Prime Ministers, Senior Ministers, Ministers and Secretaries of State most of whom are in charge of a separate ministry.

POPULATION

According to population projection based on the General Population Census of Cambodia 1998, the population of Cambodia in 2003 is 13.8 million of which 52% are females and growing at an estimated rate of between 2.5% per annum. The national average population density is 67 persons per kilometer. Around 84% of the population lives in rural areas. Cambodia’s urban population (16% of the total) is principally in two centers: Phnom Penh and Kampong Cham. Phnom Penh has an estimated population of 1.0 million and an annual rate of growth 3.5%. Regionally, the distribution is highly skewed towards: six provinces located in the central plains and around the capital, which contain close to 60% of the total population, the provinces of Battambang and Banteay Meanchey bordering Thailand in the west, where over10% of the total population resides and Svay Rieng province bordering Vetnam in the south-east, with another 5% of the population. In contrast, other province and in particular Ratanakiri and Mondokiri in the northeast are very sparsely populated (about 15 of Total population)

ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE AND RELIGION

The population consists of 90% Khmer, 5% each of Chinese and Vietnamese and smaller numbers of Chams, Burmese and hill tribes. The ethnic groups that constitute Cambodian society possess a number of economic and demographic commonalties, for example, Chinese merchants live mainly in urban centers and play the role middlemen in the economic cycle, but they also preserve differences in their social and cultural institutions. They are concentrated mostly in central and in southeastern Cambodia. The majority of the inhabitants of Cambodia are settled in fairly permanent villages near the major bodies of water in the Tonle Sap Basin-Mekong Lowlands region. The Khmer Loeu live in widely scattered villages that are the abandoned when cultivated land in the vicinity is exhausted. The permanently settled Khmer and Cham villages are usually located on or near the banks of rive or other bodies of water. Cham villages are usually made up almost entirely of Cham, but Khmer villages, especially in central and in southeastern Cambodia, typically include sizable Chinese communities.

The major differences among the groups lie in social organization, language, and religion. Theravada Buddhism is the predominant region of Cambodia, and virtually all Khmers are Buddhists. Cambodians are religiously tolerant a number religions are freely practiced. Christianity is practiced by various groups, especially the Vietnamese, and Islam is the Main religion of the Chams.

Buddhism originated in what is now North India and Nepal during the sixth century B.C. Theravada Buddhism is a tolerant, non-prescriptive religion that does not require belief in a supreme being. Its precepts that each individual take full responsibility for his own actions and omissions. Buddhism is based on three concepts: dharma (the doctrine of the Buddha, his guide to right actions and belief0; karma (The belief that one’s life now and in future lives depends on one’s own deeds and misdeeds and that as an individual one is responsible for, and rewarded on the basis of, the sum total of one’s acts and missions in all one’s incarnations, past and present, and sangha, the ascetic community within which man can improve his karma.

The Buddhism salvation is Nirvana, a final extinction of one’s self. Nirvana may be attained by achieving good karma through earning much merit and avoiding misdeeds. A Buddhism’s pilgrimage through existence is a constant attempt to distance himself or herself from the word and finally to achieve complete detachment, or Nirvana. The fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine are the Four Noble Truths: suffering exists; craving(or desire) is the cause of suffering; release from suffering can be achieved by stopping all desire; and enlightenment-Buddha hood can be attained by following the Noble Eightfold Part (right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration), which constitutes the middle way between sensuality and ascetics. Enlightenment consists of knowing these truths. The average layperson cannot hope for Nirvana after the end of life can, by complying, as best he or she is able to, with the doctrine’s rules moral conduct-hope to improve his or her karma and thereby better his condition in the next incarnation.

The Cham people  in Cambodia have descended from refugees of the Kingdom of Champa, which once ruled much of Vietnam between Gao Ha in the north and Bien Joa in the south. The Cambodia Chama are divided into two groups based on their religions practices, the orthodox ant the traditional Muslims. The orthodox group, which make up about one-third of the total number of Chams in the country, are located mainly in the Phnom Penh, Oudong area and in the provinces of Takeo and Kompot. The traditional Cham are scattered throughout the midsection of the country in the provinces of Battambang, Kampong Thom, Kampong Chnang, and Pursat. he Chams of both groups typically live in villages inhabited only by other Chams. The villages may be along the shores of watercourses, or they may be inland. The inhabitants of the river villages engage in fishing and in growing vegetables. They trade fish to local Khmer for rice. The women in these villages earn money by weaving. The Chams who live in land support themselves by various means, Depending on the villages. Some Villages specialize in metalworking, while others raise fruit trees or vegetables. The Cams often serve as butchers of cattle for their Khmer Buddhist neighbors and are, in some area, regarded as skillful water buffalo and ram breeders.

The Khmer Loeu are the non-Khmer highland tribes tribes in Cambodia. The Khmer Loeu are found mainly in the northeastern provinces of Ratanakiri, Steung Treng, Mondalkiri and Kratie. Most Khmer Leou live in scattered temporary villages that have only a few hundred inhabitants. These villages usually are governed by a council of local elders or by a village headman. The Khmer Loeu cultivate a wide variety of plants, but the main crop is dry or upland rice grown by the slash-and burn method. Hunting fishing and gathering supplement the cultivated vegetable foods in the Khmer Loeu diet. Houses vary from huge multi-family longhouses to small singlefamily structures. They may be buoilt close to the ground or on stilts. The major Khmer Loeu group in Cambodia are the kuy, Phnong, Stieng, Brao, Pear, Jarai, and Rade. All but the last two speak Mon-Khmer languages. About 160,000 Kuy currently live in the northern Cambodianprovinces of Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear, and Steung Treng as well as in adjacent Thailand.

The Chinese in Cambodia form the country’s largest ethnic minority. Sixty percent of the Chinese are urban dwellers, engaged mainly in commerce, while the other 40% are rural residents working as shopkeepers, as buyers and processors of rice, palm sugar, fruit, and fish, and as money lenders. The Chinese in Cambodia represent five major linguistic groups, the largest of which is the Teochiu (accounting for about 60%) followed by the Cantonese (accounting for about 20%), the Hokkien ( accounting for about 7%), and the Hakka and the Hainanese (each accounting for about 4%). Those belonging to certain Chinese linguistic groups in Cambodia tend to gravitate to certain occupations. The Teochiu, who make up about 90% of the rural Chinese population, run village stores, control rural credit and rice-marking facilities, and grow vegetables. In urban areas they are often engaged in such enterprises as the import-export business, The sale of pharmaceuticals, and street peddling. The Cantonese, who are the majority Chinese group before the Tecchiu migrations began in the late 1930s, lived mainly in the city. Typically, the Cantonese engage in transportation and in construction, for the most part as mechanics or carpenters. The Hokkien community is involved in import-export and in banking, and it includes some of the country’s richest Chinese. The Hainanese started out as pepper growers in Kampot province, where they continue to dominate that business. Many moved to Phnom Penh, where, in the late 1960s, they reportedly had a virtual monopoly on the hotel and restaurant business. They also often operate tailor shops. In Phnom Penh, the newly arrived Hakka are typically folk dentists, sellers of traditional Chinese medicines, and shoemakers.

The Vietnamese community is scattered throughout southeastern and central Cambodia. They are concentrated in Phnom Penh, and in Kandal, Prey Veng, and Kampong Cham province. No close cultural or religious ties exist between Cambodia and Vietnam. The Vietnamese fall within the Chinese culture, sphere rather than the Indian, where the Thai and the Khmer belong. The Vietnamese differ from the Khmer in mode of dress, in kinship organization, and in many other ways. For example, the Vietnamese are Mahayana Buddhists white most of the Khmers are Theravada Buddhists. Although Vietnamese live in urbane centers such as Phnom Penh, a substantial number live along the lower Mekong and Bassac rivers as well as on the shores of the Tonle Sap, where they engage in fishing.

Khmer is the country’s official language. It is spoken by more than 95% of the population. French is also spoken mostly by older Cambodians. English is commonly spoken by the younger generation. The majority of Cambodians, even those who are not ethnic Khmer, speak Khmer. Ethnic Khmer living in Thailand, in Vietnam, and Lao speak dialects of Khmer that are more or less intelligible to Khmer spekers from Cambodia. Minorily languages include Vietnamese, Cham, several dialects of Chinese, and the languages of the various hill tribes. Khmer, in contrast to Vietnamese, Thai, Lao and Chinese, is non-tonal. Native Khmer words may be composed of one or two syllables. Khmer has a rich system of affixes, including infixes, for derivation. Generally speaking, Khmer has nouns, verbs, adverbs, and various kinds of words called particles. The normal word order is subject-verb-object. Khmer uses Sanskrit and Pali roots much as English and other west European languages use Latin and Greek roots to derive new, especially scientific, words. Khmer has also borrow terms-especially financial, commercial, and cooking terms from Chinese, French, and English. These latter borrowing have been in the realm of material culture, especially the names for items of modern Western technology. The language has symbols for thirty-tree consonants, twenty dependent vowels, twelve independent vowels, and several diacritics 

Cambodia, a nation with a great history and enthusiastic and enterprising people is rapidly rebuilding itself. Emerging from years of violence and war, that caused irreversible damage, devastation and degradation of its developmental capacities, the country has taken up the challenge of reconstruction, sustained economic development and integration with the global community. Continued misery and suffering resulting from war and poverty may not have disappeared entirely but is receding rapidly with the Royal Government of Cambodia and the people showing great eagerness and interest in implementing developmental strategies.

Renewable Energy Resources

BIOMASS

Cambodia derives more than 80% of its energy requirements from biomass (MIME, 1997). For 90% of households, firewood and charcoal are used as an energy source for cooking. Evidence from specific study sites suggest that most cooking stoves currently used in Cambodia are of basic technology and of poor conversion efficiency, such as three-stone stoves and bucket stoves (FAO, 1998; Burgess, 2000; De Lopez, 2001). The Cambodia Fuel wood Saving Project (CFSB), an NGO funded by international donors, has developed locally a more efficient cooking stove. The introduction of the stove has been limited to a few rural areas because of budgetary constraints.

The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) has conducted an assessment of the potential for using biomass as a source of renewable energy in Cambodia. The analysis starts with an examination of crops currently produced in different provinces of the Kingdom. Rice, sugar cane and maize are the only three crops that are grown nationally and whose residues can be used to produce energy. The annual production for year 1999 was 4.04 million tons for rice, 0.16 million tons for sugar cane and 0.10 for maize (MAFF, 2002). However, these figures mask large disparities among production regions. Out of 24 provinces, only three exceed an annual rice production of 400,000 tons. For sugar cane, three provinces produce more than 20,000 tons per year. These figures imply that rice and sugar cane production is broadly dispersed among different provinces. In contrast, the production of maize is more concentrated, with most of the crop harvested in Battambang Province. The problem of transporting biomass residues to energy production facilities would be further compounded by the generally poor condition of the provincial road network. Thus a barrier to the use of biomass to produce energy would be the availability of sufficient quantities of crop residues.      

The NEDO report identifies Kompong Cham province as the region with the highest potential for biomass energy resources. The annual production for rice, sugar cane and maize were for year 2000 respectively 465,733 tons, 25,310 tons and 15,649. Proximity to the capital and the existence of adequate roads and waterways makes the area “ideal for the construction of a power generating facility fuelled by biomass energy” (NEDO, 2002).

A parallel initiative, funded by the European Commission, is the COGEN 3 project for the promotion of cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) technologies among ASEAN member countries. COGEN 3 acts as a business facilitator and aims to develop Full Scale Demonstration Projects (FSDP) through the provision of a grant of 15% of the cost of purchase of cogeneration equipment from EU-based suppliers (COGEN, 2002). Although several provinces have been identified as having potential for using rice husk for power production, the main obstacle is the availability of residues in sufficient quantities to allow for economies of scale and the construction of a financially viable facility. Existing rice-milling operations, operated by independent rural entrepreneurs, use rudimentary technology and have limited processing capacity, e.g. 2 to 3 tons of rice per hour (SME, 2000). This implies that rice husk will generally need to be collected from different mills to a central heat and power production plant.

HYDROPOWER

The government’s electrification master plan is essentially based on the establishment of a national grid and the construction of hydropower stations. Three of the hydroelectricity projects currently planned will have an installed capacity superior to 100 MW. Under Cambodian law, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) will be required for all the stations that exceed 5 MW of installed capacity (RGC, 1999).

The often quoted figure for Cambodia’s hydropower potential was provided by an Asian Development Bank’s report, where it is argued that the Mekong River and its tributaries have potential for the generation of 8.6 GW of electricity (ADB, 1999). MIME is even more enthusiastic in its estimates of Cambodia’s hydroelectric potential with about 10 GW (MIME, 1999).

The only hydroelectricity scheme of substantial capacity currently in operation in Cambodia is the 12 MW Kirirom station which is connected to Phnom Penh by a 112 kV transmission line stretching over a distance of 120 km. The original Kirirom scheme was built with Yugoslavian support and commissioned in 1968. At the end of year 1970, the Kirirom station ceased production with the beginning of the Khmer Rouge insurgency. To be noted, the area surrounding Mount Kirirom has been declared a national park by the 1993 Royal Decree on Protected Areas. Kirirom is the only known area in Cambodia of high elevation pines. The Kirirom hydro station resumed operations only in May 2002. 

The electrification master plan argues that given “the topography and high rainfall”, many areas of Cambodia are favourable to the development of mini-hydro schemes of 100 kW to 5 MW (World Bank and HECEC, 1998). The 5 MW limit corresponds to the maximum installed capacity of a station that does not require an EIA for construction.

SOLAR

From a purely technical perspective, and regardless of market considerations, Cambodia has excellent potential for photovoltaic power generation. NEDO (2002) has produced a solar radiation map for Cambodia, using data from NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) and the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Solar radiation or “solar insolation” increases gradually from the northwest of the country with an average low of 4.11 kWh/m² to the southwest of the country with an average high of 5.23 kWh/m². The maximum fluctuation in solar radiation volume throughout the year is relatively low, and has been estimated at 17%. The NEDO solar radiation map shows that all of Cambodia has “extremely good potential” for photovoltaic power generation.  

The use of PV systems in Cambodia began with a few installations donated by UNICEF, the Red Cross, La Fondation Énergies Pour Le Monde (FONDEM), NEDO, EBARA and other NGOs. Most of the applications were for health and rehabilitation centres, but solar home systems (SHSs) and lighting systems were also installed as demonstration units. Table 1 gives a list of the PV systems installed in Cambodia according to the different applications. To promote this technology in rural areas, where users have a low level of technical knowledge on PV, awareness raising, trained technicians, availability of accessories, etc are essential. Adaptive research is also required to reduce the high cost of PV systems, and to repair and maintain these systems in the long run.

PV installations in Cambodia during 1997–2004

Solar panels (1.95 kWp capacity ) used for public lighting, Kompong Tram Bridge

WIND

The main obstacle to wind potential assessment, as is the case for all other forms of renewable energy technologies, is the absence of reliable data over both short and longer time series. Weather observation remains rudimentary and restricted to a handful of sites in Cambodia. To calculate the wind conditions for each region in Cambodia, NEDO (2002) uses a combination of Cambodian geographical features and global weather data from the English Weather Bureau. The southern part of Tonle Sap Lake, the southwestern mountains and the southern coastal areas have favourable wind conditions. The Wind Atlas of South East Asia, produced by the World Bank's ASTAE program in 2001 is the most extensive study of wind resources ever undertaken for this region.  It identifies over 6,500 square kilometres of land in Cambodia with an average wind speed above 6 metres per second, with smaller areas above 7 metres per second[1]. 

The commercial viability of potential projects is determined by a number of site-specific factors, such as proximity to transmission and transport costs.  However it is important to note that significant wind generation has been established in many countries with wind speeds similar to Cambodia.  And the viability of projects in Cambodia will be assisted by Cambodia’s extremely high cost of electricity from fossil fuel sources.  Funding and finance of such projects is also emerging with projects such as the World Bank’s Rural Electrification Fund, and potential participation in the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol. For example, Sihanoukville, the main commercial harbour of Cambodia and a popular resort area. Given the expected demand in coastal areas surrounding Sihanoukville, electrification by wind power warrants further investigation. “We believe that, with Sihanoukville at its centre, the coastal region holds great potential for wind generated power.” 

Energy Efficiency Potential

A. Estimating the Potential for Energy Efficiency

• No detailed data available on sectoral energy use
• Estimation method:
  1. Use 1995 Energy Balance for sectoral consumption
  2. For each sector choose likely opportunities
  3. For each opportunity estimate average savings
     (based on Cambodian projects, or industry stds)
• Estimated potential savings = 467 GWh/yr
  (about 90% of EDC generation for 2002)

POWER SECTOR

•   Government utilities (EDC, DIME)
•   Independent Power Producers and Rural Electricity Enterprises
•   Companies with their own on-site generation

INDUSTRIAL SECTOR

•   all companies involved in manufacturing activities
•   eg:  brick kilns, garment factories, tobacco processing, food processing, rubber etc

RESIDENTIAL SECTOR

•   Households

COMMERCIAL SECTOR

•   Hotels, office buildings, restaurants, shopping centres, hospitals etc

B. Estimating the Potential for Renewable Energy

1. Desk study of existing resource assessments
2. Analysis of other relevant data
3. Estimate technical potential for each type of RE resource (using basic assumptions)
4. Identify existing projects and activities
5. Identify any relevant CDM issues

Hydro Energy Resource

• Total hydropower resource = 8,600 MW (ADB estimate)
  • 50% on Mekong
  • 40% on Mekong tributaries
  • 10% in SW Coastal Area
• Over 70 potential hydropower sites have been identified
• Issues: enviro impacts, livelihood impacts, feasibility of small projects, seasonal flows

Biomass Energy Resource

• Biomass generation potential estimate = 18,852 GWh/yr
  (approx. 35 times EDC generation 2002)
• Based on existing crop and livestock residues
• Assumes 35% conversion efficiency
• Issues: existing uses, costs of collection + transport, impacts of land use change