Quotas for solar farms that don't come on line soon could be taken

The government plans to purchase 2,000 megawatts of electricity from solar farms by December. But Pongsak expects that some of these operators that have clinched deals to sell electricity to the Provincial Electricity Authority will fail to start commercial operation by the end of this year, as required by their contracts. If so, their contracts with the PEA will be terminated. 

Therefore, the minister is looking at the rooftop solar project as an alternative.

The power-sales quota provided to commercial buildings and factories participating in the rooftop solar-panel project was originally set at 100MW, but so far their total proposals have reached 600MW.

Pongsak said promoting rooftop solar power would have a lower impact on the fuel tariff (Ft) rate than solar farms, which are eligible for an adder rate of Bt8 per unit. 

Participants in the rooftop solar project, by contrast, will operate under the feed-in-tariff system. They will gain a feed-in rate of Bt6.96 per unit if they are household producers, Bt6.55 per unit for small business buildings, and Bt6.16 per unit for medium and large business buildings.

“We will have to wait until the end of the year to obtain accurate information on the number of |solar-farm contracts that will be |terminated. Then we’ll consider replacing these contracts with rooftop producers,” he said.

A ministry source said that as of August, the total output of solar-farm companies proposing to sell electricity to the PEA stood at 3,007MW, of which 592MW had already been supplied to the authority. Those that have already signed power-sale contracts with the PEA amount to 1,444MW, of which 631MW is from thermal technology. 

As of the same month, projects awaiting approval by the Energy Ministry’s renewable energy committee for deals with the PEA amounted to 963MW. The output of the approved projects is 8MW.