Egat, SPPs to meet again on purchase cuts
Play
SMALL power producers, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) will convene again on Thursday to negotiate further on how much electricity Egat will purchase from these SPPs.
An Energy Ministry source said Egat and the 25 SPPs had been unable to reach a conclusion thus far. Egat informed them at a recent meeting on the matter that it would purchase only 5-10 megawatts of electricity from each of them, while they each wanted to sell up to 60MW to the authority.
Under the existing 25-year contracts, which will expire in 2017, each of these 25 SPPs can sell a maximum of 90MW to Egat.
The source said Egat reasoned that electricity demand was not increasing significantly. The country’s electricity reserve, which remains at a high level of 25 per cent, is expected to increase to 40 per cent some time between 2023 and 2025. This indicates that it is unnecessary for Egat to purchase any electricity at all from these SPPs.
However, the Energy Policy Administration Committee recently resolved that Egat had to purchase some electricity from these SPPs, but at a lower volume.
Paitoon Paisarnsookvithaya, vice president of the Association of Private Power Producers, said the government wanted the SPPs to sell electricity only to their customers in the industrial zones, and not to Egat.
At the recent meeting between the SPPs and Egat, the producers tried to bargain, proposing to sell only 60MW each to Egat. They also proposed a lower price, trimming the current Bt3.40 per unit by 5-10 satang.
Paitoon said Egat, the SPPs and the ERC would convene again on Thursday on the issue.
He added that if the SPPs sold less than 60MW each to Egat, this rate would be too low for financial institutions when considering lending to the producers, meaning they could not access funding for the construction of new plants.
