B.Grimm Power (BGRIM) signed a leasing agreement with the Eastern Economic Corridor Office (EECO) on Friday.
The state land will be used to produce electricity and supply chilled water for the U-Tapao International Airport and Eastern Airport City Development Project located within the EEC.
The state land, Ratchaphatsadu, is located in Ban Chang, Rayong, with an area of approximately 100 rai.
The cycle cogeneration power plant, which uses only natural gas, and the PV solar farm are expected to have an installed capacity of 95 megawatts. The smart energy storage system (ESS) will have an additional capacity of 50 megawatt-hours.
Preeyanart Soontornwata, BGRIM President, said the commercial operations date is set for 2024. The power plant will be one of the biggest hybrid power plants in the world.
The company is in the process of constructing and developing several power plant projects to achieve an installed capacity of 5,000 MW by 2022. Its combined capacity of facilities in operation and under development stood at 3,424 MW.
The projects that are currently under construction are the 39-MW Ray Power’s solar project in Cambodia, the 13-MW Lakchai floating solar farm and the Bowin Wind Farm 1 and 2 Projects with COD targets between the fourth quarter of 2020 and first quarter of 2021.
BGRIM posted a net profit of 1.16 billion baht in the first quarter of 2020, up 54 per cent year-on-year. They had a 9.4 per cent revenue increase which grew to 11.22 billion baht between January and March.
Their successful first-quarter performance was attributed to acquisitions and their four recent projects which have increased its incremental production capacity by 944 MW.
BGRIM’s sales in the first quarter were also strong thanks to the increase in demand from the packaging group (up 15.1 per cent), electronics sector (13.2 per cent) and household electrical appliances (8 per cent).
Its stock traded up on Friday from 52.75 baht at the previous closing to 54.25 baht, up 2.84 per cent as of 1:45 p.m.
Ministry of Energy’s 230 billion baht investment
The Ministry of Energy has on Thursday introduced a stimulus package worth 1.1 trillion baht over the next three years to help support Thailand’s economic recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak.
There will be an investment plan worth 230 billion baht between 2020 and 2022.
Somkid Jatusripitak, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs, said state-owned and listed PTT and Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) should reconsider its investment plans between 2020 and 2021 to create more jobs.
He said PTT should accelerate its investment plans for 2020 and 2021 without missing any targets. If they cannot do that, they will have to come up with new plans.
EGAT should also find ways to lower energy costs, especially for electricity, NGV and LPG.
For the Ministry of Energy, their plans cover three main areas including:
- Lowering the cost of living for citizens via a subsidy worth 40.5 billion baht which includes lowering electricity bills for households and businesses, and lowering import costs of Spot LNG. They should also exempt the minimum charge for electricity until September 2020. Cooking gas is now on a fixed cost until September and could be extended until the end of 2020.
- The acceleration of investments worth over 204, 457, and 450 billion baht in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Government agencies and state-owned enterprises will look to hire 10,000 people with new petroleum exploration and production round, along with investments in grid modernization and LNG receiving terminal in 2020.
- Plans to encourage communities to co-invest with the private sector on renewable energy-based power plants to produce 100 megawatts of electricity worth 30 billion baht. This is expected to create jobs for 8,000 people.
For the Energy for All scheme during 2020-21, Sontirat Sontijirawong, Energy Minister, said the plan to purchase 700 MW from community-owned power projects will enter the cabinet on June 30.
