Barriers to the Uptake of Non-Hydro Renewables in the Mekong Region: The Case of Lao PDR

Keywords: Hydropower, Mekong, Laos, Renewables, Technical Planning Assistance, Plural Plans; **I have been invited to present at the ‘Renewable’ Energy for Whom?: ‘Power’ Destabilisation in Transnational Space of Southeast Asia (tentative title) session by Drs. Hiromi Inagaki-Wagner and Naomi Clara Hanakata from NUS.
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

The United States’ historical involvement in Mekong countries’ energy sectors has encouraged a path dependence on large-scale hydropower for economic development and has produced subsequent social and political barriers to the uptake of a more diverse renewable energy mix. Despite international efforts to encourage generation technology diversification via technical planning assistance in the Mekong region, uptake of alternative generation technologies remains slow. To illustrate these challenges, I will explore social and political barriers to renewable energy diversification beyond large-scale hydropower in Lao PDR. In Laos, government decision-makers employ an ad-hoc strategy in accepting large hydroelectric projects from geopolitically-relevant foreign investors, namely China and Thailand. International actors encourage generation technology diversification by developing and advocating alternative grid development plans to the status quo. These plural plans however, often fail to encourage more ‘sustainable’ decision making at the government level across the Lao utility and relevant ministries. This study thus aims to understand why these alternative plans largely fail in encouraging the diversification of generation technology away from hydropower megaprojects. Noting the inadequate scholarly attention to energy transitions in Southeast Asia, and in particular the Mekong region, I draw on the hydrosocial and advocacy planning literatures to examine the failure of plural plans to encourage more sustainable decision making on energy projects at the state level. I employ bureaucratic shadowing, institutional ethnography, scenario-based analysis, and participant observation methodologies to explore the relationship between plural plans and state decision making on energy projects in Laos.