Myanmar’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy is seeking to hire consultants to carry out feasibility studies for four new hydropower projects in the Tanintharyi river basin in the far south of the Southeast Asian country, comprising the coastal strip between the Myanmar-Thai border and the Andaman Sea.
Tender documents are available for sale from the ministry’s Department of Hydropower Implementation up to 28 January with bids due by 16 May.
No details of the four projects were provided in the procurement notice published on the ministry’s website on 12 January but a total of five projects totalling 696 MW have been previously proposed and identified in two of the three sub-basins of the Taninthayi river basin. The Tanintharyi basin (44 876 km2) consists of the Tanintharyi sub-basin (17 865 km2) draining via the Tanintharyi River into the sea, a collection of coastal watersheds within the Tanintharyi Other sub-basin, and the small Glohong Kra sub-basin that flows eastwards into Thailand. There are no existing stations of 10 MW or greater in the Tanintharyi basin. The 600 MW Tanintharyi storage project on the Tanintharyi River, which would regulate around 9870 km2 (55 per cent) of the sub basin area within Myanmar and inundate 585 km2, has been suspended by the Government of Myanmar on environmental and social impact grounds pending a further governmental review. There are three other identified projects with capacity of between 11 MW and 25 MW on smaller tributaries of the main river basin (Sa Ra Wa Chaung (11 MW), Tha Gyet Chaung (20 MW) and Thein Jun Chaung (25 MW). One is immediately upstream of the proposed Tanintharyi hydropower project and the other two are on the southern arm of the Tanintharyi, with each having a moderate catchment area of between 1140 km2 and 1565 km2. The fifth identified project, the 40 MW Glohong Kra, is located in the Glohong Kra sub-basin, a headwater stream, which would regulate flow from 6 per cent of the catchment area in Myanmar and Thailand combined. The Glohong Kra sub-basin, which covers 2.2 per cent (992 km2) of the entire Tanintharyi river basin, provides opportunities for hydropower development.
The tender notice can be viewed at www.moee.gov.mm.
For further information, contact: Ko Naing (Bago)/GNLM Tender Acceptance and Scrutiny Committee, Department of Hydropower Implementation, Office No. (27), Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar; Tel: +95 67 8104184; +95 67 8104298; Email: dg.dhpi@moee.gov.mm.
