Thailand’s Egat and PTT to step up investment plans
Two state enterprises — the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and PTT — are being told to accelerate their investment plans both domestically and abroad to take advantage of the strong baht, says Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong.
“Roughly 36 billion baht from Egat and 100 billion from PTT have been allocated to beef up the country’s economy in 2020,” he said.
Both agencies are controlled by the Energy Ministry.
Egat has earmarked capital spending of 600 billion baht over the next 10 years for power plants and transmission lines nationwide.
Most of the large projects are gas-fired power plants, while nine projects are floating solar farms at Egat’s dams, which now generate electricity from hydropower.
The move is in line with the latest national power development plan for 2018-37, which set a quota to increase power-generating capacity by 5,400 megawatts over the next decade while upgrading high-voltage transmission lines.
Egat is in the first stage of floating solar development, with a 45MW auction for a turnkey project with B.Grimm Power Plc at Sirindhorn dam.
For PTT, the national oil and gas conglomerate has announced five-year capital spending of 167 billion baht until 2023, with a provisional budget of 188 billion baht.
Some 61% of the total budget is for subsidiaries of PTT, while 16% is for petroleum transmission and 14% is for downstream petroleum and gas business.
The remaining 9% is intended for PTT’s head office and others.
Mr Sontirat said the Energy for All scheme — community-owned power projects — should attract new investment from the public, private and people sectors of roughly 100 billion baht for power generation of 700MW during 2020-21.
He said the ministry plans to accelerate its action plan for the Energy Conservation Fund, which has been assigned a budget of 10 billion baht to finance the Energy for All scheme.
The scheme will open for participation and applications from interested investors in February.
The screening process of each application will proceed in March, then the granted investors can begin their projects.
Mr Sontirat said the Interior Ministry is taking charge of the screening process for waste-to-energy power projects under the Energy for All scheme in terms of appropriate locations across the country.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1828494/egat-ptt-to-step-up-investment-plans
