The skeletal exterior of one of the newest coal power plants in Cambodia sat silent among farmland in Oddar Meanchey province on a still afternoon in June. Weeds entangling brick stacks, cement mixers and truck tires showed construction had long been paused.
Locals toasting to happy hour down the road from the front gate complained of months of delayed pay for the site’s security guards, adding there was no set date for operations to resume. There was little more information at the Ou Svay commune hall.
“Maybe the plan changed to complete construction by 2025?” questioned Roeun Phearin, who was a commune consultant for the Han Seng power plant. “The construction is now paused and we don’t know the reason because it is the internal information of the company.”
The confusion surrounding Oddar Meanchey’s Han Seng plant is mirrored in other projects that were part of Cambodia’s big bet on coal in 2020. The kingdom doubled down on fossil fuels with plans to develop three coal power plants to meet rising electricity demand that could not be filled by renewables. This would flip Cambodia’s power production, nearly half produced by renewable energy at the time, toward fossil fuels.
The move bucked the global push for clean energy and dismayed sustainability advocates, but the announced plants are now facing years of delay — raising questions about when, or if, the kingdom’s “last” coal projects will go online.
When announced, all three plants were attached to China’s infrastructure-focused Belt and Road initiative. While China’s 2021 pledge to cut support for coal power abroad killed projects elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including in neighboring nations, Cambodia’s plans appeared to survive the chopping block.
Roeun Phearin, who was a commune consultant for the Han Seng power plant in Oddar Meanchey province, said he had received no new information about the long-delayed coal project.
| ANTON L. DELGADO
While the Cambodian government pledged that these projects would be its last coal plants, two of the three sites are in varying stages of inertia. Meanwhile, the third is finished and operational.
In deeply rural Oddar Meanchey province, the 265-megawatt, half-built Han Seng project missed its deadline to go online last year. Falling revenue for the Chinese companies in charge shifted the project to new contractors, who are sticking with coal — but are also now investing in solar energy at the same plant.
Meanwhile, near the coast in Koh Kong province, the politically connected Royal Group conglomerate has yet to even break ground on a planned 700-MW power plant initially scheduled to go online this year. Former residents of the area say they were evicted to make way for the project and not properly compensated.
Finally, just across the Bay of Kampong Som in Sihanoukville province, Cambodia International Investment Development Group’s (CIIDG) new 700-MW coal project appears to be the only one of the three to have hit its expected completion target.
Just down the same road from CIIDG in Steung Hav district is another plant, the 250-MW Cambodian Energy Limited (CEL) coal complex, which was the first of its kind in the kingdom. The complex’s plants and generators came online in stages between 2014 and 2020. Local residents fear for the effects these power plants could have on their health and the environment.
“This is not good for us,” said fisherman Hang Dara, who left his job as an electrician at CEL because of health concerns. “But it will be much worse for the next generation in this province, since they now have even more coal projects.”
The construction of the Han Seng power plant in Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province has been dormant for more than a year with no clear plan for when, or if, construction will resume.
| ANTON L. DELGADO
Future of fossil fuels
While addressing the U.N. in 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged his country would stop building and supporting coal-fired power projects abroad and step up support for renewables and low-carbon energy in order to stay “committed to harmony between man and nature.”
As a major financier and equipper of coal-fired power plants, China’s announcement was hailed as a major step toward achieving the…
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