The cabinet has approved a new version of the national power development plan (PDP) for 2018-37, expected to increase the country's power capacity to 56,431 megawatts by 2037, says Nattaporn Jatusripitak, a spokesman for economic affairs.
This PDP version was passed by the National Energy Policy Council meeting chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Jan 24.
The PDP was previously submitted to the cabinet meeting on March 12, which told the Energy Ministry to submit it to the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) for consideration.
The NESDC approved the new version on April 3, while the Office of the Council of State agreed that the PDP was in line with the Energy Industry Act.
Mr Nattaporn said the main point of the PDP's new version is to ensure adequate power to support the country's economic and population expansion.
The Energy Ministry targets electricity capacity of 77,211MW by 2037, up from 46,090MW in 2017. It plans to retire power plants with capacity of 25,310MW during the period of the PDP.
"The new capacity of 56,431MW is needed to increase in line with the new PDP version," Mr Nattaporn said.
Moreover, the PDP aims to develop power generation and distribution systems for higher efficiency in a bid to serve new power purchasing platforms between companies and households.
The PDP will improve renewable power and alternative energy, as well as develop the smart grid power network with new technology to collect, control and manage power generation and distribution automatically.
"The new plan will balance power generation and consumption in order to maintain the country's power security," Mr Nattaporn said.
