IWUMD pledges to support socioeconomic status of rural people winning ASEAN Energy Award

The ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) presents the ASEAN Energy Award, and Myanmar won eight awards in the Renewable Energy category and one Sustainable Energy Champion Award. Effective measures to ensure access to electricity that provides the socioeconomic status of rural people will be carried out along with proper attempts on receiving awards continuously, according to the Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department-IWUMD (Yangon).
Seventy per cent of the population of Myanmar are engaged in agriculture and the department arranges to provide water resource needed for the agricultural sector. To ensure the water resource, it implemented hydropower projects using dam water and solar system and contributed to the people and won ASEAN Energy Awards from 2009 to 2021.
“The hydropower is generated at the large dams, but there is a water distribution system using canals at the remote areas from the dams. We construct a falling water structure to get mini hydropower for rural electricity and it can run the small-scale industries and so it contributes to the socio-economic status of rural people. For such achievements, we won awards in international and ASEAN competitions. In 2009, we won the first ASEAN Energy Award for the Ma Mya small-scale hydropower project in Ingapu Township of Ayeyawady Region and the ASEAN Sustainable Energy Champion Award in 2021 in the competition held in Brunei. We already won eight first prizes and a second prize in the ASEAN Energy Award. We are very happy for the development of the socioeconomic status of rural people through the hydropower generation,” Director U Win Htut of the Division (Industry) 1 of the IWUMD.
The department invented the small-scale hydropower turbine and installed it at the water reservoirs to provide electricity to rural areas and won the ASEAN Energy Award. The department will continue its drive to electrify rural areas and distribute water to promote the socioeconomic status of the agricultural sector. — Nyein Thu (MNA)/GNLM