Lao PDR is natural resource abundant nation. Its mountainous landscape is one of the reasons why many large hydropower projects have built by foreign investors and the government.  While these large hydropower dams benefit people in terms of export revenues and the increased accessibility of the national grid as a whole, many people in remote areas do not have access to the electricity generated from these dams.  Therefore, a much smaller scale hydropower technology, such as pico hydropower, is the solution to address this gap.

Pico-hydropower is generally defined as all hydropower under 5 kW. Turbines of 300, 500 and 1000 Watt are the most common ones used throughout the Lao PDR, especially in the Northern provinces. The turbines are used by individual households to provide light and entertainment (TV, VCD, satellite, etc) Although there are no official statistics available, the number of turbines could be as high as 60.000 units in the country. The technology comes from China and Vietnam and is purely market-driven. Unfortunately, the safety and quality of the turbines is often low, leading to dangerous situations and low quality output.
More information can be found in the LIRE report Technography of Pico-hydropower in the Lao PDR.

In November 2008, LIRE entered a cooperation agreement with ETC Energy – EASE from the Netherlands to set up a “Pico-Hydropower Innovation and Capacity Building Program” for the duration of two years.  The project emphasises on market orientation. This means a focus on existing and new markets that drive the supply chain of the pico-hydropower turbines and other related products. This should lead to scaling up and improving the quality of safety and efficiency and reliability of pico hydropower technology in the Lao PDR.

We are now expediting the activities of the first phase and will start the second phase of the project in May 2009.  Knowledge and information obtained from our studies will be shared with and disseminated to other organisations and stakeholders on this website.