Thailand opens first solar power plant

BANGKOK, November 30 (TNA) - Thailand on Wednesday opened the first solar power plant in the country and in Southeast Asia, aimed at generating clean electricity to serve rising domestic power demand. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Yongyuth Wichaidit, who is also Interior Minister, presided over a ceremony to inaugurate the 900-million-baht solar power plant, run by Bangkok-based Thai Solar Energy. Yongyuth said Thailand now needs to find clean, renewable energy to support the steadily-growing national economy, without any opposition from local communities over adverse environmental effects, solar energy has been, thus, introduced to create and sustain national energy security, noting that the Thai government is also ready to support the local private sector to build more "green" power plants in the future. The first-ever five-megawatt Thai solar power plant is located on a plot of 150 rai or 240,000 square metres in Huay Krachao District of the country's western Kanchaburi Province, which supplies power to the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA). The plant's solar power generation capacity will be raised to nine megawatts in the future to meet its supply contract. (TNA)