If you weren’t around in Cambodia back in the day, it’s hard to fathom just how starved for electricity this country used to be. Local reports often point out that in the early 1990s, less than ten percent of the population had access to power. When night fell, outside a few fortunate spots, entire villages and stretches of road sank into complete darkness.
It is a world apart today. Local media say practically the whole country now enjoys access to electricity, with clean energy increasingly piped into factories to drive industrial growth. Cambodia has transformed from a place where plugging in a single electric fan was a luxury to an economy where factory floors stay lit up and production lines run non-stop.
Stroll down any street after dark now and you feel the shift. Bright bulbs hang over roadside stalls, fans and air conditioners hum in rental rooms, and street-corner iced coffee vendors no longer have to operate in the pitch black. Watching motorbike tailpipes kick up exhaust against the glow of the night market, and remembering when less than one in ten Cambodians had electricity, you realize it was reliable power that truly brought everyday life here to life.
