Thailand will be supplied with some more solar panels for a new power plant, as a result of the signed agreement between the authorities and Suntech Power Holding Co. The latter will provide approximately 9.43MW worth of panels to the installation.
The project is owned by Bangchak Petrolem and is scheduled to be finalized by the end of next year. Once online, the solar power plant should provide around 44MW of clean electricity.
The initiative is a small piece of Thailand’s higher goal of covering 20% of its energy demands by solar power by the year 2022. The country has a well-established position among the top consumers of electricity in the world (#23) and a ranked on presence in the worldwide top 25 countries with the most carbon emissions.
The solar panels will be installed at the Bangchak Petroleum facility and are intended to supply primarily the metropolitan area. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) are going to purchase the generated energy under long term understandings.
This would be a follow-through of the first Suntech’s contract, which states that they had to supply initially 34.5MW worth of solar panels.
In a press statement, EGAT pointed out that there’s going to be a 4.22% annual rise in the energy demands in Thailand by the year 2022, whence the necessity of speeding up the renewable energy options and use of any resources they have got in order to make it happen.
[via Solar Panel News]
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