ADB says new Thai gas power station will use clean tech

While Thailand is to benefit from a new hydropower plant in Lao financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), it is also getting its own loan of USD170 million for a new clean tech power plant in Thailand.

Although it is a 1,600 MW natural gas-fired plant to be built in Nong Saeng district north of Bangkok under a public private partnership arrangement, the ADB says its technology will produce power more cleanly than coal fired systems. By using clean burning, combined cycle technology to curb harmful carbon releases, the plant will avoid an estimated five million tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise be produced by coal-fired generators.

A subsidiary of J-Power ― Japan’s largest wholesale power supplier ― will develop and operate the plant, with the electricity to be sold to the state-owned Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand under a 25-year power purchase agreement. Thai energy firm PTT Public Company will supply the gas, and a group of companies led by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will build the facilities.