The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is preparing to buy an additional 200 megawatts of electricity from biomass power operators to avoid a potential power shortage as gas supply dwindles from the Erawan block in the Gulf of Thailand.
Khomgrich Tantravanich, secretary-general of the ERC, said the purchase announcement will be made soon to increase the power reserve for use in the summer, when demand for electricity is usually high.
Households and businesses need more electricity for cooling systems to alleviate the heat, especially in April.
The volume of electricity the ERC plans to buy is based on the calculation of total installed electricity generation capacity of biomass power plants nationwide, which supply electricity to the state grid.
The power purchase is among measures aimed to deal with an estimated decrease in gas production at Erawan by 50%-70% to 200-300 metric million standard cubic feet per day.
Natural gas accounts for 60% of fuels used to produce electricity and gas from Erawan, making up 20% of total gas supply.
Gas supply from Erawan is expected to decrease, following a two-year delay in entering the area by PTT Exploration and Production Plc, which won a bid in 2018 to operate the gas block, due to a prolonged conflict between its predecessor, US-based Chevron Corp, and the Mineral Fuels Department over which party is responsible for paying for transferable asset decommissioning.
Chevron will see its gas production concession at Erawan expire in April.
There has been no new gas exploration at Erawan as the concession's expiration draws near.
The ERC is also implementing other measures to cope with a drop in gas supply.
Some gas-fired power plants, especially independent power producers under PTT Plc and Ratch Group, need to replace gas with oil, said Mr Khomgrich.
He said the authorities also agreed to grant a one-year delay for the retirement of Mae Moh coal-fired power plant (Units 8 and 9) in Lampang, which were earlier under a plan to stop operation this year and in 2025, respectively.
The power plant is operated by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).
Egat planned to replace the facilities with two new power generation units, with combined capacity of 600MW, at a cost of 35 billion baht.
Construction of the new facilities was scheduled to start this year.