11Finally, this paper concluded that cross-border power trade policy between Laos and Thailand and expansion of hydropower development in Laos would generate significant benefits to them.
Existing study show that 80% exploitation of water resource in Laos would induce power trade between the countries and would become the net energy exporter, earn significant export revenue, and improve the increase in revenue of energy export per increase in total energy system cost from the maximum exploitation of hydropower resource. The integrated energy system cost is found to decrease marginally but it would mitigate the CO2 emission by 2% when compared with the base case. Thailand is expected to gain benefit from the increased level of power imported from Laos in terms of the lower energy system cost, better environmental quality and, greater diversification of energy sources.