Year 2007

 June

IPP bidding for 3,200 MW coming soon

Bid will be called this month, says council

POST REPORTERS

The bidding for the production of 3,200 megawatts of electricity by new independent power producers (IPPs) was endorsed yesterday by the National Energy Policy Council.

The council, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Industry Minister Kosit Panpiemras, decided to call the IPP bid this month. Bidders are required to submit in October their proposals, including the locations of their power plants and the types of fuels to be used for electricity production.

The Energy Ministry will scrutinise the proposals and select the winners in December and the contracts to buy the electricity from them will be awarded in June next year.

The endorsement is a part of the 15-year power-development plan, beginning this year, which the council approved yesterday as well. The plan involves total electricity production of 39,676.25 MW and total cost of 2.08 trillion baht for power-plant construction and transmission-line development. Of that, 1.37 trillion baht will be paid to local producers _ the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat), IPPs, small power producers (SPPs) and very small power producers (SVPPs) _ and 0.71 trillion baht for imports.

Under the plan, 7,885.25 MW of electricity will be approved for the power plants to be built between 2007 and 2010 and 31,791 MW approved for the power plants to be built between 2011 and 2021.

The council allocated uncontested electricity capacity of 12,400 MW involving 16 projects to Egat, 12,600 MW to IPPs involving 18 projects, 1,700 MW to SPPs and 5,091 MW from imports. The new IPPs are required to supply 3,200 MW of electricity to the grid in 2012.

In addition, the council approved the energy tax to be paid by all power plants, be it old or new. The rates vary, depending on the amount of emitted pollution and fuels used.

According to the council, the tax will be put into a fund while the Energy Ministry, Interior Ministry and Egat will supervise the tax payments. The fund will then be allocated to the communities surrounding the power plants so that they can use the proceeds to improve the environment in the areas.

The energy tax will be paid in two stages. During the construction, the power plants are required to contribute according to their installed electricity capacities at a rate of 50,000 baht per MW per year, or at least 500,000 baht per year to the fund.

After the electricity is supplied to the national grid, the power plants must contribute according to the amount of power they produce monthly at varying rates depending on the amount of emitted pollution.

The power plants burning natural gas are required to contribute one satang per unit (kilowatt-hour), bunker/diesel oil 1.5 satang per unit, coal/lignite two satang per unit, renewable energy such as biomass, material waste and discarded garbage one satang per unit, hydropower two satang per unit. Those using wind and solar energy are exempted from contributing to the fund.Based on the existing number of power plants last year, the fund should collect about 1.86 billion baht.

This article is written by Bangkok Post

05/06/2007

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