The country's geographic location in the Pacific makes it a good potential for renewable energy generation with 76.6 GW wind, 10 GW hydropower, 5 kWh/m2/day solar, 500 MW biomass, 170 GW ocean, and 4 GW geothermal (International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) 2017).
In Table 2, the energy generation capacities of these resources stand at 120,000 MW for wind, 2,900,000 MW for solar, 5500 MW for biomass, and 42,000 MW for hydropower [1, 14, 18, 20].
Today, the Three Gorges Dam is the de facto anchor of a planned system of 12 hydropower mega-bases on the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze.
According to Vladimir I. Ivanov, a Russian energy economist based in Japan, "There are at least 10 hydropower projects that are economically feasible".
Over all, officials have said more than 100 hydropower stations could be built on the upper Yangtze basin within two decades.
In 2013 the National Assembly reported that 268 hydropower projects were up and running, with a further 205 projects expected to be generating by 2017.
The Lao government has proposed a further 11 hydropower projects along the lower Mekong, which will be harder to oppose if the river has been dammed already.
By one recent count, there are more than 80 hydropower projects in various stages of preparation and construction for the Mekong and its tributaries.
"In the DRC, the World Bank and other financiers have invested billions… in the construction and rehabilitation of the Inga 1 and 2 hydropower projects and associated transmission lines over the past 40 years.
Late last month, Earth Rights International, a Thailand-based environmental and human rights organization, issued a report detailing the investments of 69 Chinese multinationals in 90 hydropower, oil, gas and mining projects.
To keep up with demand, the government wants to increase its domestic energy production from less than 1,000 megawatts currently to more than 10,000 megawatts through the construction of more than 20 hydropower dams all over the country.
