The Rural Electrification Fund (REF) has the honour to inform the Public, Private Companies, Rural Electricity Enterprises (REEs), and Stakeholders in power sector - who are currently services providers or having the plan to provide these services, that the targets of the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) are that, by the year 2020, all the villages throughout the Kingdom of Cambodia will have electricity of any form and by the year 2030, at least 70 % of all households will have access to grid quality electricity.

To accelerate the achievement of this goal, RGC has issued Royal Decree No. NS/RKT/1204/048 dated 4th December 2004 to establish the Rural Electrification Fund (REF) in the Kingdom of Cambodia (a)- to promote equitable rural electrification coverage by facilitating the population’s access to electricity, at affordable price for economic, social and household uses, thus contributing to its poverty reduction and (b)- to promote and encourage the private sector to participate in providing sustainable rural electrification services, in particular for the economic, technical and commercial exploitation of well proven new and renewable energy technologies.

REF currently has program to:

1. Bulk purchase 12,000 units of SHS with the capacity of 30Wp and 50Wp for subsidized credit sell and installation at rural households located outside the electricity network, with re-payment in instalments without interest within a period of up to 4 years. RGC has agreed to provide a subsidy of USD 100 per SHS to rural households as assistance to reduce the cost of the SHS. This is to facilitate the rural household’s access to electricity through SHS. After repayment in full of the interest-free credit, the SHS will become the property of the purchaser. These 12,000 SHS are planned to be installed in 7 targeted provinces of Kampong Thom, Kampong Speu, Pursat, Preah Vihear, Siem Reap, Mondul Kiri and Rattanak Kiri.

2. Completion of detailed feasibility study of 5 mini/micro hydro projects with total installed capacity of 6,850 kW to facilitate project financing by private companies.

Earlier this program also included construction of one mini-micro hydro project. Considering the progress and difficulties in the implementation of the above construction program, RGC and the World Bank agreed in principle to cancel the construction of one mini/micro hydro project by REF and RGC requested to allocate the budget for this construction to implement Power to the Poor program. This program is to provide interest free loan to rural households to meet expenses for connection, deposit, wires from meter to house, and in-house wiring fees. Meanwhile, this program will assist REEs to increase the customers and improve revenue as well as to increase electricity access to the rural poor HHs. The request is under the consideration of World Bank.

3. Design and construction of REF office building.