The energy sector in South East Asia is expanding. But for the sector to be sustainable, its environmental impacts must be accounted for and incorporated into project design and implementation.
Ramboll is providing preliminary environmental and social impact assessments on an Asian Development Bank (ADB) project providing four priority regional power interconnections in the Greater Mekong region, to be commissioned from 2022-2030. The work involves cross-border transmission lines in Lao, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) of Vietnam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China’s Yunnan and Guangxi provinces, was established in 1992 as an ADB initiative to facilitate and promote mutually beneficial economic cooperation among the GMS countries.
One goal of the GMS nations is to create a regional power trade to reap economic and technical benefits, and better balance generation resources with electricity needs across national borders.
This project follows other projects working for the French electric utility company EDF. Ramboll has an ongoing project in Cambodia where we are supervising the implementation of transmission and distribution lines during the design and construction stages and during testing and commissioning. The end client here is the finance institution AFD (French Development Agency).
Ramboll’s role in the Mekong project
Ramboll professionals from France, India, Malaysia and the US are working together on this project. The work includes:
Providing rapid environmental assessments and initial environmental examination reports
Undertaking a climate change risk assessment
Providing a social impact assessment including resettlement and indigenous peoples
Designing project consultation and information disclosure plan
Conducting socioeconomic surveys
Conducting a public perception survey to identify public problems and development priorities
Reviewing government policies and strategies for poverty reduction and gender development
Conducting a poverty and social analysis