WHA Utilities & Power to build peer-to-peer (P2P) energy site in Rayong’s Pluak Daeng district
Factories to benefit from 100MW boost
SET-listed WHA Utilities & Power Plc (WHAUP), which provides utilities under WHA Corp — Thailand’s biggest industrial land developer and operator — is planning to develop what it claims to be the world’s largest site of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading from rooftop solar panels among factories in a WHA industrial estate in Rayong’s Pluak Daeng district.
The trading platform, designed to provide a power generation capacity of 100 megawatts (MW), will be developed for large factories and warehouses.
“We will be the world’s largest P2P energy trading location in terms of capacity compared with other P2P energy trading projects, which run on kilowatt-scale capacity,” said WHAUP chief executive Niphon Bundechanan.
The project in Pluak Daeng has already been submitted to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) for approval and is expected to start in the next six months, he said.
Last month, WHAUP signed a memorandum of understanding with Sertis Co and PTT Group to develop a smart energy platform, which will support the P2P energy trading project.
Artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will be used to optimise electricity management on the trading platform.
The collaboration is part of an ERC sandbox scheme, which is aimed to test microgrid electricity management.
Mr Niphon expects 30-40 factories to participate in the project.
WHAUP specialises in rooftop solar system development. It had a capacity of 44MW as of March this year, up from 18MW in the same period last year.
Its parent company, WHA, operates 11 industrial estates in Thailand, mostly located in the Eastern Economic Corridor. WHA also runs an industrial estate in Vietnam.
In another development, WHAUP expects to finalise its plan to acquire renewable power plants, mostly in Vietnam, with a combined capacity of 250MW within this year, Mr Niphon said.
Among them are three wind farms in operation in Vietnam, with a capacity of 90MW.
The move is in line with its plan to increase power generation capacity to one gigawatt in total, up from 594MW at present.
WHAUP expects the capacity to increase to 670MW next year. Additional electricity mostly comes from rooftop solar panels and floating solar farms, excluding new asset acquisitions.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2141287/whaup-to-build-p2p-energy-site-in-rayong
