BANGKOK, Thailand – Although it has been getting ahead in the race when it comes to its renewable energy program, Thailand is still enforcing more conservative feed-in-tariff (FIT) charges, which it calls the “adder” in its wholesale electricity rate, and even on its installations for solar and wind capacities.

As compared to the 20-year lock-up period being set for FIT in the Philippines, Thailand’s “adder” will only be put in force for 10 years; and its government, through its energy ministry’s Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) already indicated that tariffs may take a declining trend in the coming years with the anticipated maturity of RE technologies, primarily those for solar.

Most notable also is the fact that its “adder” or FITs for various RE technologies are lower than what have been proposed in the Philippines. Thailand’s solar will have an adder of 8.0 baht per kilowatt hour (or approximately P11.36 per kWh) while wind corners an adder of 3.5 baht (or roughly P4.97 per kWh). The “adder” will be on top of the 3.0 baht retail rate which Thai consumers have been paying in their electric bills.

The duration for “adder costs” of cheaper technologies will only be for 7 years, and these are also lower, such as 2.50 baht (or P3.55 per kWh) for municipal solid waste (MSW) in the biomass genre; and even lower for other renewables at 0.30 baht (P0.426 per kWh), which are also subject to bidding processes.

For the more controversial RE integration in the power mix, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) noted that the initially approved installation target for solar would be at 55 megawatts (MW) this 2011.

There would be annual additions, the utility firm said, depending on the caps set and what its electricity system can accommodate and if the RE proponents can comply with the stringent project entry requirements set by government policies, including the rules set by its Ministry of Energy, its Energy Regulatory Commission which approves the “adder” rates and by EGAT which is the off-taker utility of the RE capacities as underpinned by its small power producer (SPP) program.

For the equally contentious wind installations, Thailand’s ‘black box’ policy will be to defer integration of wind by 2016 so it will have time to prepare its system on the widely-perceived intermittence or “on-and-off nature” of generation of the technology.

EGAT noted that while there have been proposals for about 2,000 megawatts of solar capacity, the country is still way too ‘guarded’ in just accepting project proposals that its next installation target may be scheduled on stream around 2015. As its electricity system is not necessarily suffering from supply crunch,

Thailand considers RE integration on its power mix as an “enhancement” that will just give its consumers the choice to go for “cleaner source of energy”; yet intimated that such can never be a solution especially in systems which are having “baseload” problems.

The first solar installation approved by Thai government and subsequently accepted for off-take agreement by EGAT is the 55-MW Lopburi project of the EGCO PCL group in partnership with Japanese firm Mitsubishi Corporation and Hongkong’s China Light &Power (CLP) Holdings Ltd. The facility, which is scheduled on commercial operation November this year, will have capacity expansion of up to 63 megawatts by 2012.

Project developers for the 8.0-billion baht solar facility have engaged Japanese firm Sharp Corporation and Italian-Thai Development PCL for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. Sharp is the supplier of the thin firm photovoltaic (PV) solar technology that will be utilized for the facility.

EGCO noted that thin film is the cheapest and an efficient solar technology that can be deployed at present. “Thin film has lower temperature sensitivity and is suitable for equator countries,” the company has noted.

The PV module, it added, has “performance warranty for 25 years,” and while it is relatively new with just 6 to 7 years foray in the market, intensive research and development (R&D) have been conducted to ensure viability for its commercial deployment. (MMV)