B1bn to promote use of renewable energy
The Energy Ministry has set aside a fund of one billion baht to support the projects to produce electricity from renewable energy sources under the Very Small Power Producer (VSPPs) Programme.The money will be lent to private investors and state agencies interested in generating electricity from renewable energy at an interest rate of no more than 4%, Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand told a conference on VSPPs yesterday.
Applicants for the loans can submit their proposals to the ministry starting today, said Dr Piyasvasti.
He said the ministry had a firm policy to promote electricity production from renewable energy sources.
Under the amended regulations, the amount of electricity purchased from the VSPPs will be raised up to 10 megawatts (MW) from one MW since many had sufficient energy sources to generate more than one MW of electricity.
Renewable energy sources that can be used for electricity production include water, wind, solar energy, waste, bagasse (a sugarcane byproduct), paddy husk and biomass. But waste and wind power are the only two types in commercial use today. Other types of energy cannot produce enough electricity for sale.
A survey found that waste, which is readily available nationwide, has very high potential to produce 200 MW of electricity but no records were kept that could determine the potential of wind power.
Dr Piyasvasti said there was much room to produce electricity from renewable energy in Thailand since it made up only 2% of total production of 26,000 MW.
To encourage the use of more renewable energy, three state-run power utilities offer more attractive prices for it than they do electricity made from fossil fuels.
For instance, the price of electricity generated from biomass is 30 satang per unit (kilowatt-hour) higher than that of fossil-fuel electricity, wind power 2.50 baht, solar energy eight baht per unit higher, small hydropower with a capacity below 50 kilowatts 80 satang, small hydropower with capacity between 50 and 200 kw 40 satang per unit, and waste 2.50 baht a unit.