Every village to get solar farm under new scheme

Every village to get solar farm under new scheme

The Finance Ministry plans to spend 80 billion baht to set up a solar farm in every village in Thailand.

The National Village and Urban Community Fund Office has launched the One Village One Megawatt Solar Farm scheme so that every village can generate electricity for its own use.

There are 74,963 villages in Thailand, according to the latest Interior Ministry data as of Dec 31 last year.

The Energy Ministry's Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency Department is the project's coordinator.

Kulwaree Buranasajjawaraporn, director of the department's Innovation Group, said the Energy Regulatory Commission Office and the Energy Policy and Planning Office are considering details of the programme.

The National Energy Policy Council has approved a feed-in tariff of 6.96 baht per kilowatt-hour for a solar farm with a capacity of 1-10 kWh, 6.55 baht for projects of 11-250 kWh and 6.16 baht for projects of 251 to 1,000 kWh.

The Finance Ministry has also considered tax holidays and investment privileges for the programme, which should begin no later than next year.

Ms Kulwaree said the government should support locally made solar panel producers because at present 90% of the equipment is imported.

Since 2007, when the government launched a programme to support solar energy, 194 solar farms with a combined capacity of 553 MW have been launched.

Another 214 projects with capacity of 1,400 MW have been awarded licences and are under construction.

The Energy Ministry targets having 3,000 MW of solar farms operational by 2020 under a national plan to have a 25% share of renewable energy in Thailand's energy mix by that year.

Ms Kulwaree said the department is providing project financing for solar drying houses used in the agricultural and fishery sectors at a maximum of 50% of the total cost.

It costs 360,000 baht for a 50-square-metre solar drying house, 724,000 baht for a unit of 99 sq m and 1.2 million baht for one of 166 sq m.

The department plans to develop 166 projects of solar dryer houses with a combined space of 16,000 sq m by 2016.

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