Thailand plans to avert power shortfall Bloomberg News / June 27, 2007
Thailand plans to buy electricity from China starting in 2017 because the country is not building power plants fast enough to meet an expected demandm surge, says Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand. The government has signed an initial agreement to buy about 3,000 megawatts of electricity from hydropower plants in southern China starting in 2017, he said.
The country needs to add more than 30,000 megawatts of generating capacity by 2021 to avoid shortages, according to the ministry's forecasts.
The accord will bolster Thailand's efforts to more than double its power-generating capacity by building coal, nuclear and hydropower plants. The government wants to pare the country's reliance on natural gas, which provides about 70% of Thailand's electricity.
''We continue to look for other sources of energy and the biggest source around here is probably hydropower,'' Dr Piyasvasti said. ''Hydropower potential is enormous around here in Laos, Burma and southern China.''
China may spend 600 billion yuan ($79 billion) to triple its hydropower capacity over the next 15 years to meet rising demand and cut pollution, Bing Fengshan, secretary-general of the China Society for Hydropower Engineering, said on June 8.
Thailand has about 26,000 MW of power-generating capacity and needs an additional 31,791 MW by 2021, the energy ministry said recently.
China Huaneng Group, the country's biggest generator, plans to build hydropower plants in provinces including Yunnan, the nearest to Thailand, said Liu Xiangdong, a division director at the group's planning department.
Hydroelectric power produced in China would have to be sent to Thailand via Burma. The plan may also be stymied by China's own power shortage.
''If there is an export of electricity to Thailand, it should be from a combination of hydro and coal-fired plants,'' said Bai Jianhua, a research director at the State Power Economic Research Center, who helped study the feasibility of the plan to transmit electricity from Yunnan to Thailand.
''It is not only a matter of prices. China, in general, is a country of energy shortages, and we need to ensure stable supplies to the southern provinces, particularly Guangdong.''
Thailand is also tapping Laos for power, and plans to buy about 5,000 MW of hydropower from the country by the end of 2015, Dr Piyasvasti said.
Electricite{aac} de France, Kansai Electric Power Co of Japan, and Thai companies are building a hydropower plant on the Nam Theun River in Laos.
Dr Piyasvasti reiterated the Thai government's plan to build nuclear plants, and said his ministry had sought advice on the project from countries including the United States and France.
Thailand now imports about a third of its natural gas from Burma.
''We aim to diversify the mix of nuclear, natural gas, coal and hydropower,'' Dr Piyasvasti said. Thailand lags behind countries in the region including Indonesia and Vietnam that have decided to build nuclear power capacity, he added.
''If you do it properly, nuclear is very safe. If the world wants to see an eventual reduction in the global emission of greenhouse gases, the world will really have to go back more seriously to nuclear power.''
