In 2003 a national sector review for hydropower was prepared by the Ministry for Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) and the Cambodian National Mekong Committee (CNMC). This report identified 60 possible sites for hydropower development in Cambodia and estimated the country’s total generation potential at 10,000MW, of which 50% is on the mainstream Mekong, 40% on its tributaries and 10% in the southwest outside the Mekong basin.4
As Cambodia does not yet have the financial or technical capacities to design, construct and operate large-scale hydropower projects, all large-scale projects currently under development are under build-operate-transfer (BOT) agreements of 25 years and upwards.