BANGKOK - Vientiane is hardly a noisy city on any given day, but a recent development is helping to keep the decibels down. More ride-hailing service drivers in the Laotian capital are using quiet electric vehicles, relying on the country’s plentiful hydropower rather than more expensive imported petrol.

Until June, this hydropower was making its way to Singapore via transmission systems in Thailand and Malaysia. But the two-year-old Lao PDR-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP), as this deal is called, appears to have stalled over disagreements about the amount of power to be purchased.