Thailand Adding 1,000 MW of Solar with New Feed-in Tariffs

The government of Thailand has announced plans to spur another 1,000 megawatts (MW) — or 1 gigawatt (GW) — of solar photovoltaic projects in the country. Feed-in Tariff (FiT) rates will be offered for 200 MW of rooftop solar and 800 MW of community-owned ground mounts. Systems will be guaranteed the new FiT payments for a 25-year period, instead of the previous 10 years.
The approval for the new plans were announced by Thailand’s National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC) on Tuesday, raising the country’s goal for solar energy to 3 GW. The FiT rates will be awarded to 100 MW worth of rooftop solar photovoltaic installations of up to 10 kW in size, and to a further 100 MW worth of PV systems in the 10-250 kW and 250 kW-1 MW ranges. FiT rates will also be awarded to 800 MW worth of “ground-mounted, community owned solar, to be allocated as 1 MW per tambon, or local government sub district.”
PV Magazine has more details: “The smaller systems will be paid THB6.69/kW (US$0.22/kW) over 25 years with mid size rooftops earning THB6.55/kW and the largest domestic systems guaranteed THB6.16/kW. To qualify, rooftop systems have to be installed by December. The community FIT rate is also for 25 years but will have a built-in regression with systems earning BHT9.75/kW for years one to three, BHT6.5/kW in years four to ten and BHT4.5/kW for years eleven to 25. To qualify, the community systems must be installed by December 2014.”