Thailand Turns to Renewables Over Gas Turbine Shortage, Says IEEFA
Thailand's draft Power Development Plan 2026 scales back gas capacity to curb high costs and reliance on imported LNG, prioritizing massive solar and battery expansion instead, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis note on Tuesday.Thailand's PDP 2026 marks a retreat from natural gas, projecting utility-controlled gas generation capacity to drop from 32 gigawatts in 2025 to 16 gigawatts by 2050, IEEFA said.Global gas turbine manufacturing queues have tripled combined-cycle capital costs to $2,400 per KW and extended delivery timelines to over five years, the report said.IEEFA notes that these severe supply bottlenecks have already triggered 10 GW of gas-fired plant project cancellations in Thailand since 2021.Under the draft blueprint, Thailand plans no new large-scale gas developments through 2037, relying instead on renewables to fill the gap, it said.The plan targets 27 GW of renewable capacity and 14 GW of battery storage by 2037, scaling up to 114 GW and 55 GW respectively by 2050.IEEFA highlighted that a government-backed funding package to deploy 5 GW of rooftop solar could displace 0.82 million tons of annual LNG demand, saving $1.02 billion in yearly fuel import costs.It pointed out that building new gas plants at current capital costs would inflate electricity tariffs, especially given that 11 GW of existing gas capacity have been dispatched at under 30% utilization while receiving billions in unproductive availability payments.