The UK, a temperate country once almost entirely reliant on coal, had its first coal-free day since 1880 last month and is on schedule to be coal-free by 2025. More coal-free days depend on solar, especially in summer months. In Thailand, a semi-tropical country with abundant sunshine, the Electricity Generating Authority (EGAT) is planning six coal plants and complaining about its 800MW Krabi coal-fired plant being temporarily shelved for a new Environmental Health Impact Assessment. EGAT is publicly voicing concerns over plugging this hole when the answer is obvious: public tendering for 800MW of solar in the South.

Lights out in two years?

According to EGAT’s own statistics, dependable power-generation capacity in the South stands at 3,089MW. Peak demand there is increasing by 5 per cent per year. Theoretically, peak will exceed dependable-power generation in about two years’ time. However, interconnectedness is becoming more efficient. Upgrading the high-voltage transmission lines from the Central region will deliver up to 1,650MW of additional energy by 2024.

What of national energy security, ie, energy independence because of fluctuations in the international energy market? Energy Minister Anantaporn Kanjanarat has stated that while buying energy from Malaysia is an option, Thailand’s energy generation should be 85-90 per cent domestic by 2026 and 80-85 per cent domestic by 2036, according to the national Power Development Plan 2015-2036 (PDP). However, at present only 6.4 per cent of Thailand’s energy is imported, mainly from Lao hydro-electricity. Another 800MW is 5 per cent of EGAT’s total installed capacity of around 15,548MW.

So, relying on Malaysia comes under the 15 per cent cap. The main obstacle is that the present Thai-Malay agreement on the interconnectedness of electricity transmission only covers 300MW of energy from Malaysia to Thailand.

Meanwhile, the PDP sees 6,000MW of installed solar by 2036. This is pathetic, with a more realistic estimate being 8,600MW by 2025, according to research company BMI. In fact, as of 2016, Thailand’s total installed solar was 2,753MW, of which 96 per cent was solar farms, the rest being solar rooftops. 2015 was a record year for Thailand’s solar, with an additional 722MW installed. So was 2016, with over 740MW being added. At this rate, EGAT’s 6,000MW target will be met 15 years early.

Delays, lack of infrastructure

The government’s push for solar at present basically consists of only two programmes: solar farming and rooftop panels.

For solar farming, what is limiting deployment is government incompetence and a lack of feed-in tariff (FiT) transmission lines – which allow locally generated power to “feed into” the power grid. Only in August 2014 did the government announce the Agro-Solar programme, with a target of 800MW. This aimed at realising solar farms with a capacity of up to 5MW in the form of public-private partnerships (PPP), with the governmental sector (Group 1) and agricultural cooperatives (Group 2) as public partners.

However, the process was delayed, with the government only publishing the details and regulations in March 2015, after the National Energy Policy Council’s approval. This has led to Thai consumers installing residential solar rooftop in line with expected timetables only to be harassed by EGAT officials when the residential solar feeds into the grid. The government announced the application process in September 2015. The scheme consists of two phases, and Phase 1 opened for application rounds in November-December 2015. 

However, due to selection criteria difficulties, the process was again delayed, shifting scheduled commercial operation dates to December 2016. Moreover, in Agro-Solar Phase 1, Group 1 projects were dropped because of inadequate regulations managing PPPs, meaning the planned 600MW was reduced to 300MW. Moreover, 200MW of investments were not realised in 2016 because the government awarded licences to companies that then merely tried to resell the licences for profit. Now, investor pre-screening to ensure licensing to genuine operators has been instituted. 

For Agro-Solar Phase 2, a petition was filed by 2,000 agriculture cooperatives over the government’s proposed lucky-draw style public tender. This caused further delays. Phase 2 should be implemented this year, though if government regulations cannot be negotiated, only the 119MW applicable to Group 2 will go ahead. 

Further, the government has lacked the flexibility to transfer the targets from failed Group 1 tenders to the more successful Group 2 approach to maintain a total target of 700MW. Moreover, none were in the South because of the lack of FiT infrastructure.

The first solar photovoltaic (PV) rooftop FiT policy was announced in 2013, with a target of 100MW for commercial and 100MW for residential. The commercial quota was rapidly filled. However, only 21MW of residential agreements were signed. Due to problems with licensing regulations, some systems only started in 2015. As a response, under the government’s Quick Win Proposal, solar rooftop licensing will now be streamlined, with over 10,000MW by 2036 – 5,000MW each from residential and commercial. This revised rooftop target alone makes the 2036 national target of 6,000MW of solar appear preposterous.

Licensing regulations are also urgently required for purely commercial solar plants up to 90MW, without government or agricultural cooperative partners. This lack of vision is holding back an entire industry. 

What is needed

To replace coal with solar in the South, Thailand needs deregulation and de-monopolisation of the energy industry; the construction of FiT-compatible transmission lines; strong government encouragement, including streamlined licensing; regulations for commercial power plants; and a target of opening up the market for medium-sized plants of approximately 100-300MW in the 2020s.

Solar is compatible with both national energy security needs and the Sufficiency Economy. Thailand owns all the sunlight that falls on it, and solar is the natural corollary of the country’s hydro-electricity, patronised by His Majesty King Rama IX. Solar would reduce Thailand’s annual imports of millions of tonnes of coal, mainly from Indonesia and Australia.

Consequently, EGAT should install FiT infrastructure and then license 800MW of a mix of solar agro, rooftop and commercial plants specifically for the South, using hybrid power plants if necessary. Citizens should also rightly question why the government is pushing ahead with the decidedly unpatriotic 2,400MW Thepha coal-guzzling plant in Songkhla. Or, as electricity storage develops, any coal-fired power plants.