National Power Supply hungry for success in the Thailand IPP gas bid

National Power Supply (NPS), which is specialized in manufacturing, designing and development of power supply systems, revealed that the company has joined the natural-gas-fired power plant bid set for Independent Power Producers (IPPs), with combined capacity of 5,400-megawatt, which is scheduled to feed in power by 2020.

Sitthiporn Rattanopas, NPS chairman, said that the company would join the bidding process in two key locations with capacity of 900 megawatts each, and locate near the distribution route of Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). As a result, the company is confident in its competitiveness in the cost of electricity in comparing to rival bidders.

Sithiporn however said that the new round of electricity price would be much higher than today. PTT Group has already submitted the price of natural gas, which will be used by IPP bidders as their base to calculate the electricity price to be offered in the bidding process. The price of natural gas however had increased significantly from about Bt320 per one million BTUs today to between Bt600 and Bt700 per one million BTUs by 2020 the time those power plants to feed in power.

The bidders however will offer their electricity price and the year they are ready to feed in power into the system to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). Those bidders who passed the technical criteria set by ERC will have the right to open the bidding price. And those who offered the lowest price per unit will win the bid.

Commission president Direk Lawan-siri said the Bid Management Committee, with representatives from nine bidders in the natural-gas-fired power plant project, had already signed the confirm letter their technical offerings to the ERC and evaluation of those technical offerings from bidders will be totally completed by May this year.

A source from Energy Ministry said that there are nine IPP bidders from five groups of company, which are NPS, Gulf JP, Ecco Group, Glow, and Amata B-Grim. Meanwhile, the withdrawal of big rivals, such as Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding and PTT Group, would result to less competition about the bidding price.

Suthat Pattamasiriwat, Egat governor, said that the new IPP power plants would rely heavily on imported LNG gas, which has higher price than natural gas.