SET-listed TPI Polene Power Plc (TPIPP), Thailand's largest waste-to-energy (WTE) project developer and operator by capacity, has vowed to become a coal-free power generation company by 2025 with plans to replace fossil fuels with refuse-derived fuel (RDF).
The company is operating both WTE power plants and coal-fired power generation facilities.
Electricity supplied by coal-fired power plants currently accounts for half of the company's total installed capacity of 440 megawatts.
Worawit Lerdbussarakam, vice-president of TPIPP, said the company expects the fuel replacement plan to involve spending of 5.5 billion baht between 2022 and 2025.
Its RDF production capacity will increase from 7,200 tonnes per day to 11,700 tonnes per day to serve the fuel shift plan.
Electricity generated from coal fuel is expected to decrease to 190MW by 2024, and zero by 2025.
The total installed capacity is expected to increase from 440MW at present, to 474MW and 582MW in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Mr Worawit said the company intends to participate in the government's WTE scheme, which is being revised in order to increase the electricity production capacity.
The scheme's current target is to have WTE projects produce 440MW over the next two decades.
This target is expected to be revised up to 600MW in line with a commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, made by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, known as COP26, in Glasgow last month.
The government's new round of the auction of WTE projects is likely to be held in the first quarter of next year.
Mr Worawit said TPIPP is planning to spend 4.07 billion baht over the next couple of years to develop three new WTE projects, already awarded to the company by local administrative bodies.
One of them is the 500-million-baht WTE project, with electricity generation capacity of 70MW, in Thap Kwang municipality in Saraburi. The plant is scheduled to start operations next year.
Another two are the 1.74-billion-baht WTE project, with a capacity of 12MW, to be developed in an area overseen by the Songkhla Provincial Administrative Organisation in Songkhla, and the 1.83-billion-baht WTE project, with a capacity of 12MW, in Muang Nakhon Ratchasima municipality in Nakhon Ratchasima. They are expected to start operations in 2023.