This was revealed by MOEE Deputy Permanent Secretary U Soe Myint to the Myanmar Times on Monday.

An agreement to conduct a study for a China-Myanmar cross-border power transmission line project was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar in January, U Soe Myint said.

“Currently, working groups from both countries are negotiating the details of the project and the possible amount of power to be purchased. When this is completed, the Chinese government will propose a company that will implement the project,” said U Soe Myint.

It is proposed that during the initial phase of the project, Myanmar will purchase power from China for domestic consumption and sell back power to China at a later time if Myanmar has surplus power, he added.

“The policy that Myanmar is adopting isif we have surplus power we will sell it, and buy if we need. Currently, we will buy to fulfill domestic power need but sell back to them later if our domestic power generation can produce a surplus,” said U Soe Myint.

To fill the country’s power needs, 1,000 MW would be bought from China before 2021, said senior officers from Ministry of Electricity and Energy officially in May 2019.

China Southern Power Group also done ground surveys on such a project as well.

According to agreements between ASEAN countries, one country can sell excess power to another and if one country needs to buy power from another country, a power trade is to be carried out between two countries and buy electricity from China.

The electricity will be sent from Dohon in China, to Muse, Mine-ye, Hopone, Loikaw and Phayagyi.

The country is currently experiencing a 600MW shortage of electricity and this is expected more than double to 1500MW in 2020, according to MOEE estimates. While several hydropower projects are planned in Myanmar, these will take a much longer to complete if at all due to disagreements over the use of land.

“We have talked about buying 1,000 MW but can’t use all of it. We can use it to fill our power needs and can still sell the excess power to other countries. But we can’t use all 1,000 MW,” said U Soe Myint in 2019.

Currently, arrangements will be made as soon as possible to purchase power from China, but final details for such an arrangement have not been worked out yet. – Translated

Source: https://www.mmtimes.com/news/proposal-purchase-power-china-be-studied.html