Talk:Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand

Propose change: EGAT's monopoly

I realize that I may have a conflict of interest with the organization, but I have found that there are some obvious mistakes in the article. I would like to propose some changes as follows for your consideration. As written in the article that "EGAT's monopoly position in Thailand's electrical energy market has been challenged by critics as influential as a former energy minister and other government members are on the board. It has been criticised as inefficient and an impediment to the development of renewable energy sources.[4]," actually Thailand’s electrical energy market was privatized and liberalized since early 1990s.

According to Thailand Power Industry, DBS Group, P.3-4, EGAT’s total installed capacity is 16,067MW, accounting for 30% of total capacity of the country. Private sector participation in Thailand's electrical energy market has been allowed since early-1990s when the government privatised the power generation business. The government liberalised the sector by introducing open bidding for power projects in 1994 under the Independent Power Producer (IPP) scheme to reduce EGAT’s investment burden in building power plants to accommodate the fast-growing demand in the domestic market at that time. The bidding process was re-opened in 2007 and 2010 with a total installed capacity of 16,000MW for all three rounds.

In addition to IPP, smaller-scale privately-owned power plants operate under the Small Power Producer or SPP (mostly 90MW-contracted capacity) and Very Small Power Producer (VSPP) schemes. The SPP scheme was designed to allow developers to propose projects with capacity sales of up to 90MW to EGAT. Any additional capacity can either be used internally or sold to industrial customers. As of March 2017, EGAT has signed power purchase agreement with 156 SPP projects with an installed capacity of 13,983MW. About 70% of this capacity is in operation. Normally, SPP plants employ co-generation or renewable energy technologies.

The VSPP scheme was launched in 2002 which allows small-scale renewable energy projects of up to 10MW to connect to the grid and sell electricity directly to MEA and PEA. The cap was initially set at 1MW and then increased to 10MW in 2006. To date, 981 VSPP projects with an installed capacity of 5,240MW were awarded PPAs, using biomass, solar, wind, biogas, and waste as fuel.

--Nooeay (talk) 03:01, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

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Reply

 No Actionable Request. I'm sorry, but I'm unsure whether the entire three paragraphs above are to be added to the article or not. If so, there would need to be more references backing this information. Please advise. Spintendo ᔦᔭ 03:36, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply

@Spintendo: Please find additional reference on privatization private sector participation

Privatisation of the energy sector has been gradually implemented over a number of years. Resolutions from the National Energy Policy Council (NEPC) and the Cabinet comprise the current policy. The Cabinet’s latest resolutions speed up the privatization of the energy sector. A letter of intent between the Thai government and the IMF also clearly outlines the specific measures related to the privatisation of the energy sector as follows: In the energy sector, [Thailand] will accelerate privatisation and competition. As part of the broader strategy of encouraging the entry of independent private generators to enhance competition, EGAT has initiated sales of its stakes in Electricity Generating (Public) Co.,Ltd. and Powergen 2 (Ratchaburi power plant) during 1998.

I would like to change

EGAT's monopoly position in Thailand's electrical energy market has been challenged by critics as influential as a former energy minister and other government members are on the board.

to

EGAT’s total installed capacity is 16,067MW, accounting for 30% of total capacity of the country. Private sector participation in Thailand's electrical energy market has been allowed since early-1990s when the government privatised the power generation business.

Thank you for your consideration.--Nooeay (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

No

I object to this edit request. Other sources claim that EGAT is the only entity legally allowed to buy electricity and redistribute it to consumers. Almost all power generating companies are required to sell their electricity to EGAT. That is indicative of EGAT's monopoly power over the Thai electricity market. Do you have evidence to show demonstrate that this no longer the case? Altamel (talk) 03:05, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

References

Altamel (talk) 03:05, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Reply

I think we view “monopoly” differently. EGAT as a state-owned enterprise must follow the Thai government’s energy policy to buy electricity from private power producers, Independent Power Producers (IPPS) with more than 90MW-contracted capacity and Small Power Producers (SPP) with 10-90MW - contracted capacity. The large amount of electricity produced by IPPs and SPPs is supplied to the national transmission system that is under the responsibility of EGAT. For the current situation and conditions in Thailand, the grid operation under the government sector is a way to maintain the reliability and security of the national power system. However, the government has allowed small-scale power projects of up to 10MW to connect to the grid and directly sell electricity to Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) and Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) since 2002. Therefore, from my point of view, it should not be said that the market is monopolized.

Nooeay (talk) 04:22, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Propose change: fossil fuel consumption (factual error)

According to the article, it is said that EGAT imported 11 million tonnes of coal, but after checking in the cited reference , I found that in the first half of the year 11 million tonnes of coal were imported by the whole country, not only by EGAT. The coal imported is mostly used by private power producers. EGAT mostly uses coal in the Mae Moh Mine owned by EGAT.

Moreover, it is written in the article that EGAT produced 6.88 million tonnes of lignite from January–May 2016, mostly for use in its own power plants, but after checking the reference I found that it is Thailand that produced 6.88 million mt of lignite over January-May, not just EGAT.

So you need to replace EGAT with Thailand on these two mentioned points as written in the cited reference.

Nooeay (talk) 06:28, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

By all means, if there are factual errors in a WP article and you have legitimate references, change the text. You are being hyper-considerate by posting proposed changes here. That's good of you, but unnecessary, as no one objects to factual accuracy. If other sources dispute your addition, I am sure that another editor can craft a paragraph or two weaving together the warring data in a coherent and explanatory narrative. Thanks, Seligne (talk) 03:29, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

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