The USAID-NREL Partnership, in coordination with Clean Power Asia, partnered with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the Lao PDR power sector. The assessment included a review of climate change related risks as well as vulnerabilities related to technological and human-related threats. At the time of the assessment, the Lao PDR was experiencing severe flooding related to greater than normal rainfall and tropical storms. Impacts from these threats include potential fuel supply shortages for transportation and energy generation, physical infrastructure damage, shifts in energy demand, and disruption of electricity supply to the end user. These disruptions adversely affect critical services and facilities such as hospital services, water treatment, and communications networks. Despite significant infrastructure vulnerability to climate threats, the people of the Lao PDR display incredible resilience. Here, residents play and fish in the rising flood waters in Vientiane, Laos. Learn more about planning a resilient power sector at the Resilient Energy Platform website: http://bit.ly/30LeCqV. Learn more about the power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Sherry Stout, NREL, August 2018.
Climatelinks Photo Gallery
Do you have a photo that you want to add to the photo gallery?
Welcome to the Climatelinks photo gallery. Here you can find a range of climate change and development photos from our photo contest, our blogs, and USAID’s Flickr sites. Submit your photos to the photo gallery here.
Showing 20 results
This picture was taken by Victor Mugarura September 9, 2019, in Ngoma District in Eastern Rwanda. It features one the beneficiaries of Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze Activity, a five-year $32.6 million USAID-funded project (2017-2022) that aims to sustainably increase smallholder farmers’ income, improve the nutritional status of women and children, and increase the resilience of Rwanda’s agricultural and food systems to a changing climate. Hinga Weze works to empower over 530,000 smallholder farmers across 10 districts.
This woman is pictured near a water reservoir constructed as a partnership with Rwanda Agriculture and Livestock Board (RAB) to set up several solar-powered irrigation schemes to irrigate 300 Hectares in 4 districts. The solar scheme is made up of a water source, a solar plates and generator and a 500 cubic metre reservoir. Like all selected scheme points, the pictured reservoir is part of a complete solar-powered scheme located in Rukumberi Sector, a semi-arid area in Ngoma District in Eastern Rwanda where her cooperative will now be able to grow vegetables all-year-round mainly watermelon, tomatoes and green pepper.
This picture was taken by Victor Mugarura September 9, 2019, in Ngoma District in Eastern Rwanda. It features one the beneficiaries of Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze Activity, a five-year $32.6 million USAID-funded project (2017-2022) that aims to sustainably increase smallholder farmers’ income, improve the nutritional status of women and children, and increase the resilience of Rwanda’s agricultural and food systems to a changing climate. Hinga Weze works to empower over 530,000 smallholder farmers across 10 districts.
This man is pictured tending to his tomato garden irrigated using a solar-powered scheme constructed as a partnership with Rwanda Agriculture and Livestock Board (RAB) and Ngoma District. This is part of a project to set up several solar-powered irrigation schemes to irrigate 300 Hectares in 4 districts. The solar scheme is made up of a water source, a solar plates and generator and a 500 cubic metre reservoir. The pictured sprinklers and solar panels are part of a complete solar-powered scheme located in Rukumberi Sector, a semi-arid area in Ngoma District in Eastern Rwanda where his cooperative will now be able to grow vegetables all-year-round mainly watermelon, tomatoes and green pepper.
USAID's Clean Power Asia (CPA) program partnered with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to assess the power sector of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) vulnerability to natural, technological, and human-caused threats, and to develop a resilience action plan to address the highest-risk vulnerabilities.
In support of these activities, technical experts from NREL and CPA visited existing power generation facilities, including a hydro-power dam site, and the EDL-GEN solar power project in the Naxaithong district, Vientiane. The EDL-Gen solar power project is the first-ever utility scale PV project in Lao PDR. Previously, the USAID-NREL Partnership conducted a technical potential assessment for solar PV in Laos.
Read more about the solar PV technical potential assessment in this report: http://bit.ly/2kEbSMF. Learn more about the power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Nathan Lee, NREL, November, 2018.
The Bangladesh Wind Resource Assessment project, made possible with support from USAID's Bangladesh mission and the Bangladesh Power Division, focused on utilizing observed data from meteorological stations to adjust and inform a model that created a database for Bangladeshi investors, policy-makers and transmission planners to quantify and locate where the best wind resource and development sites were. In this photo, a boy in Chandpur, Bangladesh is learning how wind is measured with a cup anemometer. Read more about the project in this report: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy18osti/71077.pdf. Photo taken by Mark Jacobson, researcher from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in 2015.
We can create the new method to produce electricity in Thailand. The "Hydro Floating Solar Hybrid" can produce electricity around 25 megawatts and is located at Srinakarin Dam, Kanjanaburi, Thailand. Then, we can add value from the water in the dam and this will help to create new dams in Thailand.
The USAID and NREL Partnership hosted a modeling group from the Philippines at NREL's campus for a month-long research exchange supporting the Philippines' development of competitive renewable energy zones (CREZ). By working directly with NREL's power sector experts, the group, composed of partners from the Philippines Department of Energy (PDOE) and National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), refined key models used to enable proactive transmission planning for scaling up renewable energy and better utilizing the Philippines' indigenous renewable energy resources.
Hanzel Cubangbang, of the NGCP, presents details about the transmission planning model to a group of NREL and USAID team members in a collaboration session. Read more about the exchange at: http://bit.ly/2m5yq9e. Photo taken by Werner Slocum. July 30, 2019
In 2017, a young boy from Shikharpur, Nepal plays on the roof of his house, where a solar panel has been installed to provide his family with renewable electricity. As the effects of climate change on natural resources become more and more detrimental, renewable sources of energy are necessary to ensure climate change resilience in Nepal’s most vulnerable regions. Building Climate Resilience of Watersheds in Mountain Eco-Regions (BCRWME) is the first component of Strategic Program for Climate Resilience (SPCR) of Nepal. The project is carried out by IWMI, along with ADB, the Nordic Development Fund, and the Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management.
Lake Arenal Hydropower Plant, Costa Rica, October 2014. Costa Rica runs on renewable energy for an average of 300 days a year, largely thanks to hydropower generated in stations like this one. Costa Rica’s proactive environmental policies are the reason it is considered a strong example of sustainable development around the world. However, much of Costa Rica's environmental development was not well regulated as it was undertaken, and numerous problems persist.
Subject: Lawal Omowumi
Location: Gbamu Gbamu, Nigeria
Date: November, 2017
Less than half of Nigeria’s 186 million people have access to electricity. But in the rural village of Gbamu Gbamu, newly installed utility poles and wires act as markers of a brighter future, powered by a new solar minigrid. The grid, an effort of local developers Rubitec Solar and Winrock’s USAID-funded Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Project (REEEP), is empowering citizens and their enterprises, providing them with a better quality of life and more stable sources of income. Lawal Omowumi, pictured above, has ample time to show off the yield from the cocoa dryer she operates. But while Omowumi is eager to reap business benefits, she is equally excited for the changes the minigrid will bring to Nigeria’s hot nights. “Normally, villagers sleep outside. But when there is light [meaning solar power] in the midnight they will have fans and sleep there,” she says, pointing to the interior of a nearby home. “They sleep inside and enjoy themselves.”
The USAID-NREL Partnership, in coordination with Clean Power Asia, partnered with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the country's power sector. The assessment included a review of climate change related risks as well as vulnerabilities related to technological and human-related threats. At the time of the assessment, the Lao PDR was experiencing severe flooding related to greater than normal rainfall and tropical storms.
Flooding and other extreme weather events can damage generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure and cause both short- and long-term outages. This photo shows power distribution equipment located within the flood zone in Vientiane, Laos. The vulnerability assessment analyzed risks related to power sector equipment sited in hazard zones.
Learn more about planning a resilient power sector at the Resilient Energy Platform website: http://bit.ly/30LeCqV. Learn more about the Lao PDR power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Sherry Stout, NREL, August 2018.
The USAID-NREL Partnership, in coordination with Clean Power Asia, partnered with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the country's power sector. The assessment included a review of climate change related risks as well as vulnerabilities related to technological and human-related threats. At the time of the assessment, the Lao PDR was experiencing severe flooding related to greater than normal rainfall and tropical storms.
Flooding submerged this local shop on the banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, Laos. The assessment showed that lack of policy for resilient siting of infrastructure posed a significant risk in the Lao PDR. Learn more about planning a resilient power sector at the Resilient Energy Platform website: http://bit.ly/30LeCqV. Learn more about the power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Sherry Stout, NREL, August 2018.
The USAID and NREL Partnership hosted a modeling group from the Philippines at NREL's campus for a first-of-its-kind, month-long research exchange supporting the Philippines' development of competitive renewable energy zones (CREZ). By working directly with NREL's power sector experts, the group refined key models used to enable proactive transmission planning for scaling up renewable energy in the Philippines.
Noriel Reyes, of the Philippines Department of Energy, and Jervie Bagsik, of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, are seen taking part in a collaboration session with NREL and USAID team members during their visit. Read more about the exchange at: http://bit.ly/2m5yq9e
Photo taken by Werner Slocum. July 30, 2019.
The Bangladesh Wind Resource Assessment project, made possible with support from USAID's Bangladesh mission, the Bangladesh Power Division, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, focused on utilizing observed data from meteorological stations to adjust and inform a model that created a database for Bangladeshi investors, policy-makers, and transmission planners to quantify and locate where the best wind resource and development sites were.
In this photo, a meteorological instrument, called SODAR (Sonic Detection And Ranging), is transported to the site, a rice paddy in Rangpur, Bangladesh, where it will take meteorological measurements for one year. Read more about the project in this report: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy18osti/71077.pdf. Photo taken by Harness Energy, 2015.
Irrigation system with electrovoltaic energy installed at the Ramon Rodriguez farm, in Santiago Rodriguez, Dominican Republic. This system was installed under the Index and Climate Resilience Insurance Program, executed by the REDDOM Foundation. May 2017.
Ramon is one of many farmers who suffered the adverse effects of climate change. The drought has greatly depleted the area where the abita, with this type of technology now Ramon can irrigate his grass and feed his cattle.
Power Africa: Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Technologies Peter Mutai, 42, in Lugari, Kakamega County was among the first members of Lugari Boda SACCO to apply for a loan to buy a 4A solar lantern. "The 4A has 4 bulbs and costs 8500 shillings (USD 84) and is enough for my three-roomed house. One bulb is placed outside to provide lighting at night and for security purposes," Mutai said. More than 95 percent of Lugari SACCO members are not connected to the electricity grid. Off-grid energy solutions empowers the members to improve their lives and conserve the environment. Boma Safi won $100,000 from USADF's Off-grid Energy Challenge to increase the distribution of its solar lanterns and efficient cook stove products to rural populations in Kenya. As part of Power Africa, the Off-Grid Challenge is helping ensure responsible, transparent and effective management of energy resources in Sub-Saharan Africa.
