In a move that will see those living in rural Myanmar gain greater access to renewable energy, the Laos-based rural renewable energy specialist Sunlabob Renewable Energy, and the Yangon-based sustainable energy company Relitec, recently finalized a partnership agreement to address the country’s power issues.
As it stands currently, only 4% of the rural population in Myanmar has access to electricity (by some estimates). While you could very easily argue that much of the electricity use throughout the world is essentially completely unnecessary, a basic minimum level of available electricity can provide highly important services. The partnership sets out to provide this important minimum.
Myanmar Flag (Credit: CIA World Factbook | GNU Free License)
“This partnership is an important step for both Sunlabob and Relitec to provide high-quality renewable energy solutions to Myanmar, a country greatly in need of reliable, affordable energy,” stated Andy Schroeter, CEO of Sunlabob. “Sunlabob’s experience implementing rural, off-grid renewable energy throughout the developing world will complement Relitec’s on-the-ground knowledge of the local Myanmar market.”
Neither of the two companies is unfamiliar with the country/region — Relitec has actually already implemented quite a bit of both on- and off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in Myanmar.
“Myanmar is just seeing the tip of the iceberg for solar energy’s potential,” stated Than Aye, Managing Director of Relitec. “We are excited to be well-positioned to meet the upsurge of solar activity.”
In related news, the last time that we covered a renewable energy development in Myanmar was about a year ago when we reported on the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Green Earth Power and the country’s Ministry of Electric Power to construct a $275 million solar project. While there has been much out there about the project since that last announcement, the plans were/are for the project — located in the city of Minbu in the Magway region — to be finished by the end of 2014/beginning of 2015. That could be a big step forward, but it would still just provide electricity to a sliver of the population living without it.
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