Laos expects to import 50% less electricity in 2011 than in the previous yeark following the opening of several hydropower plants. The state utility firm, Electricité du Laos (EDL), estimates that imports, which come mainly from Thailand, China and Vietnam, will reach 555m kwh in 2011, compared with 998m kwh in 2010, when the total outflow of foreign currency to cover imports was around US$50m. In 2011 EDL expects to purchase 781m kwh from domestic independent power plants, representing a 31% year-on-year rise. Total electricity consumption is forecast to reach 2.6bn kwh-a rise of 10%. Electricity production totalled almost 3.9bn kwh in the first half of 2010/11, or a 188% increase from the first half of 2009/10. The country's largest hydropower plant, the 1,070-mw Nam Theun 2 dam, is largely responsible for the increase. Around 3.4bn kwh of the power was exported, generating revenue of US$164m. At the same time, provinces not linked to the national grid have imported 338m kwh of power at a cost of US$18m.

The country now has ten hydropower plants in operation. Another 17 plants are in the planning stage, while 45 projects are in construction or are awaiting feasibility studies. An additional 11 power grid projects are under way to improve the domestic network and allow imports to be reduced still further. However, Laos's ambitions to fully develop its power potential face opposition. The proposed 1,260-mw hydro dam on the Mekong river in Sayaboury is on hold following criticism of the project from neighbouring countries. In April at a special meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), a regional body that helps to co-ordinate use of the river, the three other MRC member states-Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam-deferred approval of the project to ministerial level. Later in the month the Vietnamese natural resources and environment minister, Pham Khoi Nguyen, said that his government had not been satisfied by the information provided on the project and that it had requested that Laos delay all dam projects on the river for ten years. The Sayaboury project is seen as a test case, as another ten hydro dams are planned on the lower Mekong river in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Advocacy groups and potential funders such as the ADB have said that the dams could cause severe and irreversible social and environmental consequences.

Prior to the MRC decision, resistance to the Sayaboury project became vocal within the Cambodian, Thai and Vietnamese political systems. In mid­April a Thai parliamentary committee on development and public participation announced its unanimous opposition to the proposal and called on its prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, to re-analyse the electricity purchase agreement. The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, and Nguyen Tan Dung were also reported as expressing concerns about the project's impact on fish and rice production along the Mekong. As a result of this pressure, on the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in early May, Thongsing told Mr Dung that Laos would suspend construction of the dam pending further environmental studies.