CKPower wins AREA Awards for fifth consecutive year
Strengthening the company’s position as a leader in renewable energy with focus on building quality of life and rehabilitating the environment
CKPower Public Company Limited, a regional leader in renewable electricity generation, has strengthened its record of international recognition by receiving the Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA) for a fifth consecutive year.
The achievement reflects the company’s progression from individual community initiatives towards a systematic approach to social and environmental responsibility. CKPower applies its core expertise in engineering and renewable-energy management to improve quality of life, strengthen communities and expand educational opportunities around its power plants and in remote areas of Thailand and Laos. Its programmes are designed to deliver measurable results that can be developed and extended over time.
CKPower’s journey at the AREA Awards
Since 2022, CKPower has pursued sustainability by systematically combining the expertise of its employees with active community participation.
Over the past five years, its work has expanded from sharing knowledge and providing clean energy to creating educational opportunities, developing community capabilities and managing natural resources and the environment more effectively.
The Hing Hoi Project has played a central role in this development. It uses the company’s engineering and renewable-energy expertise to benefit society, bringing together people, communities and the environment while producing outcomes that can be measured and expanded.
Hing Hoi built on the power of collaboration
The Hing Hoi, or Firefly, Project began in 2016 after surveys identified gaps in basic services among communities around CKPower’s power plants and in remote areas. These included limited access to electricity, clean water and educational infrastructure.
The programme was therefore created to apply CKPower’s expertise in ways suited to the circumstances and needs of each community.
The name Hing Hoi represents the idea that although each firefly produces only a small light, many fireflies together can create a much brighter glow. In the same way, the combined contributions of individuals can bring about significant change.
CKPower has developed the initiative around three areas of expertise: renewable energy through solar power systems; engineering through energy-efficient buildings and water-supply systems; and environmental management through natural-resource restoration and the recovery of value from waste.
Under its Social Value Creation Framework 2022-2026, CKPower operates through three main pillars:
- Hing Hoi: Renewable Energy for Better Quality of Life, which expands access to clean energy and improves community wellbeing.
- Hing Hoi: Conserving, Protecting and Restoring Natural Resources and the Environment, which supports ecosystems and increases the conservation of upstream forests.
- Hing Hoi: Innovation Creating Opportunities for Communities, which develops livelihoods and adds value to local products around power plants through the One Power Plant One Product (OPOP) model.
Improving access to energy, water and education
As of July 2026, the Hing Hoi Project had completed 46 initiatives and expanded cumulative access to 163,100 watts of renewable-energy capacity.
The projects include solar street lighting, turbine systems, solar-powered water treatment and other clean-energy installations supporting access to clean water and basic public utilities.
More than 16,000 children and young people have received knowledge about renewable energy. Teachers and young participants have also been developed as knowledge ambassadors who can pass what they have learnt to schools and communities.
A cumulative total of more than 2,635 CKPower employee volunteers have participated in the programme.
CKPower has also focused on ensuring that the projects remain sustainable after installation. Its work includes developing educational facilities, clean-water systems and community environments, as well as establishing renewable-energy funds to support long-term maintenance.
Creating livelihoods through community innovation
The One Power Plant One Product model is another important part of CKPower’s community-development strategy.
The programme builds on local resources and traditional knowledge to create quality products that generate added value and income, while enabling communities to become more self-reliant over the long term.
Local residents participate throughout the process, from decision-making and planning to product development. This helps ensure that each initiative reflects the conditions, culture and way of life of the community concerned.
CKPower provides support in areas including hygiene standards, packaging development and marketing.
One example is the Ban Na Tor Yai hygienic fermented-fish project, where production facilities were upgraded and products were developed into five processed formats.
The initiative created additional income for 75 residents, averaging 895,000 kip, or approximately 1,300 baht, per household each month.
CKPower has also supported the development of community-woven textiles in Luang Prabang, Laos.
The OPOP model has so far developed six community products, generating combined income of more than 2.8 million baht, above the programme’s target. The results demonstrate how economic opportunities can be created while local skills and traditional knowledge are preserved and passed on.
Waste to Value turns organic waste into community resources
Another example of CKPower using its environmental expertise to create community value is the Waste to Value project at the Xayaburi Hydroelectric Power Plant in Laos.
The initiative reuses organic waste generated by the power plant rather than disposing of it through incineration.
Employees work with surrounding communities to process food waste through fermentation and turn it into soil-improvement material. The material is then distributed to local farmers, helping reduce dependence on chemical fertilisers, lower agricultural costs and promote efficient resource use under the principles of the circular economy.
The project currently produces an average of approximately 2,665 kilograms of soil improver a year. It reduces community fertiliser costs by more than 72,900 baht annually and cuts greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 3,840 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent each year.
Between 2023 and 2025, the project collected more than 31,333 kilograms of organic waste and converted it into a total of 8,472 kilograms of soil-improvement material. It also reduced the amount of waste requiring incineration by 20%.
These results show that Waste to Value is more than a waste-management initiative. It gives discarded materials a new purpose, reduces environmental effects and community costs, and promotes more efficient and sustainable use of resources.
Throughout its sustainability journey, CKPower has continued applying its expertise in energy, engineering and environmental management to create value for communities and society.
Its objective is to ensure that business growth progresses alongside improvements in quality of life, the protection of natural resources and the creation of a shared, sustainable future.
