Feb. 12--The slowing economy means that the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) could save anywhere between 460 billion and 1.65 trillion baht on investments over the next 15 years, in line with lower power demand.

The estimates are based on the revised national power development plan (PDP) for the period from 2009 to 2024 to reflect the impact of the global economic downturn, said Pornchai Rujiprapha, permanent secretary of the Energy Ministry.

The savings are from reduced investment in hydropower projects in Laos, which require massive capital.

However, the state utility may put the Laos plants back into its investment plan if plans for coal-fired and nuclear power plants fail to materialise, Mr Pornchai said at a public hearing on the PDP yesterday.

The revised PDP envisages a huge reduction in the power that Thailand had planned to import, dropping to 5,036 Megawatts from 13,244 MW earlier.

As well, output from the nuclear power plant now under study would be halved to 2,000 MW if it comes online in 2020 and 2021 as planned.

Under the revised PDP, Egat would have total capacity of 26,000 MW in the next 15 years, up from 17,500 MW now.

Its new output would come from an expansion of the new gas-fired Chana plant to 1,500 MW from 700 MW starting in 2013; expansion of Bang Pakong in Bangkok by 800 MW; two new plants totalling 1,600 MW and a third plant in a southern province with 800 MW in 2020.

However, the plan contains detailed demand projections only for the next five years as officials admit that forecasting beyond 2013 would be difficult and more revisions may be needed in the future.

"The figure will be fixed just for the first five years of the plan. For the rest we put in numbers without details just in case demand jumps dramatically in the future," Mr Pornchai said.

All private power producers (IPP, SPP, VSPP) will also be allowed to raise capacity to 9,585 MW from 7,500 MW.

However, the most recent independent power producer (IPP) bid winners, except for the 660-MW Gheco-One Co plant, will delay the start of their operations by one year to 2014.

The third round of bids for IPP output totalling 2,400 MW would also be delayed, with operations to start in 2020 instead of 2017 planned earlier.

As well, Egco Group Plc's Khanom gas-fired power plant, with a capacity of 800 MW, will also need to renew its concession in 2016.

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