"Solar energy is just beginning to gain some traction in Myanmar, a country that has been gradually opening up its economy and society to the world since 2011. Demand for energy has been growing fast, in parallel with the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member’s economy, and solar energy is competing against a variety of conventional, as well as alternative low- or zero-carbon, energy resources for its share of Myanmar’s energy mix. Renewable energy, in the form of large-scale hydroelectric power, already accounts for around 60%, the single largest share, of Myanmar’s electricity generation mix. The country also has an abundance of natural gas, an important export and the source of hard, foreign currency export revenues, as well as domestic power generation. Solar could play a big role in achieving Myanmar’s energy access, renewable energy and climate change goals, as well as go a long way towards setting Myanmar firmly on a sustainable development pathway, however. Levels vary widely across this geographically diverse Southeast Asian nation, but on the whole, Myanmar is endowed with an abundance of solar energy resource potential, an average solar irradiance of 4.5–5.1 kilowatt-hours per square meter per day (kWh/m2/day). “Myanmar has incredible potential for solar energy: the International Growth Centre has estimated Myanmar’s solar potential to be 51.973 TWh (terawatt-hours) annually,” according to FinerGreen and ABO Wind, the authors of the SolarPower Europe Emerging Markets Task Force’s Myanmar research report, which was released in May..."