Thailand further delays nuclear power generation

BANGKOK, November 30 (TNA) - The Ministry of Energy has announced to postpone Thailand's nuclear power plant projects for six years and to proceed with coal-fired power plants. Suthas Patamasiriwat, Governor of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) under the Ministry of Energy, said on Tuesday he has learned that his ministry is reviewing its 20-year power development plan, with projects to build five nuclear power plants with their combined capacity of 5,000 megawatts to be further delayed for three more years in addition to the previous Democrat Party-led government’s decision to initially delay them for three years, making the projects be delayed for six years altogether. Suthas acknowledged that the completion schedule of the first Thai nuclear power plant has been, thus, postponed from 2020 for six years, a period needed for convincing local people of the advantageous nuclear power. Suthas said, however, that Thailand's coal-fired power plants will proceed as planned and the first plant under the EGAT’s initiative will be completed by 2019, insisting that the coal technology is clean, based on good management, and the use of imported low-sulfur coal can cut pollution; while there are also enough coal deposits in the country over the next two centuries and coal-fired generation requires low costs. According to the EGAT governor, Thailand's power consumption has now returned to the pre-flooding level, at 20,700 megawatts, as several flood-hit industrial sites have cleaned up their factories and resumed production and a number of flood evacuees have returned home. The EGAT governor predicted that Thailand's electricity consumption throughout this year will drop by one per cent, but the country's overall power consumption should rise by four per cent next year. (TNA)