EdC Says New Generators Will Put an End to Blackouts in Capital ERd

An extra 7.5 megawatts of pow­er has entered Electricite du Cam­bodge’s Phnom Penh grid this week as CPP tycoon Senator Ly Yung Phat’s private power plant begins testing its six new ge­n­erators, officials said Wednes­day.

At full capacity, the Cambodian Electricity Private Ltd plant will con­sume 256,000 liters of sulfu­rous heavy fuel oil every day, sup­ply­ing the capital with 45 mega­watts of elec­tricity, said plant man­­a­ger Tun Bun­na.

Tun Bunna added that the plant should be fully operational by Monday, claiming that this would more than close the gap be­tween Phnom Penh’s supply and demand to stop the capital’s epi­demic rolling black­outs.

“There will be no problem with a lack of electricity in Phnom Penh,” Tun Bunna said.

The six generators, each weigh­ing 120 tons, were imported from Finland, he said.

The capital currently requires ap­proximately 130 megawatts dur­ing peak hours, and is about 12 me­ga­watts short, according to EdC.

Chea Sunhel, EdC’s transmission department director in charge of pow­er cuts, said he welcomes the new power source and hopes for an end to residents curs­ing him be­cause their power has gone out.

He added that the shortage had af­fected many residents, but ac­know­ledged that certain custo­mers—Phnom Penh Interna­tion­­al Air­port, government buildings and some senior officials’ homes—were spared by the blackouts.

“For the residences of some top leaders, we would keep them lit up because they work for the go­­v­ernment,” Chea Sunhel ad­mitt­ed, though he declined to re­veal exactly which high-ranking of­ficials had been spared the black­outs.

He also admitted what many had sus­pected: that poorer sub­urban are­as had sometimes suf­fered more cuts to keep central Phnom Penh charged.

“Please just wait a bit, then there will not be any more cutoffs,” he said.

Residents around Minister of De­fense Tea Banh’s Tuol Kok dis­trict re­sidence said Wednes­day that his pow­er never seemed to go out, so they suspect that he was one of the special no-outage cus­tomers.

But Tea Banh had another ex­plan­ation, adding that he too is sub­ject to the power cuts.

“There are two to three power cuts per day, every day, especially around twilight,” he said.

“Electricity doesn’t differentiate. They cut off the line to my house. But I have a generator for back­up,” he added.