Integrating Strategic Environmental Assessment into Power Planning

The power sector is expected to expand significantly throughout the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), with demand projections in the Lower Mekong countries alone showing an increase from 317 terawatt-hours in 2012, to 815 terawatt-hours in 2025. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a tool that can inform more sustainable power planning and lead to better integration of sustainability issues in power development plans compared to the impacts-based approach.

This book is the first in a three-volume series of studies arising from the project Ensuring Sustainability of the Greater Mekong Subregion Regional Power Development. It highlights the role of SEA in assessing the sustainability of polices and plans at a regional or national level, emphasizing how SEA can contribute toward better policy making in the power sector, create greater stakeholder involvement in consultation processes, and develop capacity in countries of the GMS to undertake SEA of their power development plans.