Next Energy First Investment in Thailand

Nexif Energy, the Singapore-headquartered Asian and Australian power firm, announced that it had secured debt facility and partnership agreements for a 92-MW gas-fired co-generation project in Thailand, the company’s first investment in the country.

Debt funding for the project is provided by a consortium composed of Kasikornbank Public Company Ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and Standard Chartered Bank (Thai) Public Company Ltd. Equity funding, on the other hand, is provided by Nexif Energy and its project partner, Ratch Group Public Company Ltd (RATCH).

The co-generation power project is situated at the SSP industrial estate in Rayong province, Thailand. The project will sell electricity under a 25-year power purchase agreement with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand. Nexif Energy said the Rayong co-generation project will serve industrial customers in the SSP Industrial Estate located in the fast-growing Eastern Economic Corridor of the country.

The company also emphasised that the project will utilise the latest, most-efficient combined cycle gas turbine technology available at this scale. The project is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2022, with RATCH taking a 49-per cent stake and Nexif holding 51 per cent. “The project helps build Nexif Energy’s portfolio and represents an important step towards our vision of delivering clean, reliable power to our customers,” said Nexif Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer Surender Singh.

The project followed Nexif Energy’s acquisition of the Song Giang Hydropower JCS in Vietnam in December 2019. Song Giang owns two run-of-river hydropower projects totaling 49MW in the Khanh Hoa province of Vietnam. Nexif Energy was formed in August 2015 by Nexif, a Singapore-based independent power management company, and Denham Capital, a global energy-focused private equity firm with more than $10 billion of invested and committed capital across eight funds.

The energy project in Thailand comes as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has set an ambitious target of securing 23 per cent of its primary energy from renewable sources by 2025 as energy demand in the region is expected to grow by 50 per cent.