Myanmar triples expenditure on electricity supply in 5 years

Myanmar has tripled its expenditure on electricity supply over the past five years, an official report said Sunday quoting Deputy Minister of Electric Power U Maw Tha Htwe.

In the fiscal year 2015-16 ending March, the government invested 481 million U.S. dollars, up from 143 million USD, he said.

Noting that the country's individual consumption of electricity stands at 222 kilowatts, the deputy minister revealed the installed capacity of electricity of Myanmar rose from 3,400 megawatts (mw) in 2010 to 5,089 mw in 2015 and electricity has been distributed to 15,000 of 60,000 villages across the country.

He further said Myanmar's National Electrification Plan, conducted in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2012, aims to enable all parts of the country to have full access to electricity by 2030.

However, the plan has just covered 33 percent of the whole country, he disclosed, saying that much remains to be done to meet the target as only one third of the country's 50.89 million population live with electricity.

Statistics indicate that in Myanmar, 66 percent of electricity comes from hydropower, 29 percent from gas-fired power and 3 percent from coal-fired ones and the rest from wind, solar and biomass sources. Enditem