The move comes after TPCH, a listed company, recently successfully bid for a government contract to build and operate three biomass power plants with a combined capacity of 26 megawatts, out of an overall 36MW quota set for three provinces in the deep South.
The planned Nonthaburi project forms part of the company’s five-year expansion plan for electricity production, under which it targets reaching a combined 200MW of electricity generation in 2020, from 142MW currently.
“We are confident in our capability [to manage 3.8 million tonnes of waste], which will give us an opportunity to win the waste-to-energy power plant contract from Nonthaburi Provincial Administrative Organisation [PAO],” managing director Cherdsak Wattanavijitkul said at the company’s “Opportunity Day” event yesterday.
He said Siam Power held a 10-year landfill concession from the Nonthaburi authorities covering 137 rai (22 hectares) of land for 3 million tonnes of waste, plus 818,812 tonnes from a nearby public landfill site on another 40-rai plot.
The area is located next to Siam Power’s 75-rai plot, on which the waste-to-energy plant would be built, he added.
Cherdsak said the combined 3.8 million tonnes of waste could be converted into 1.7 million tonnes of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) used for electricity production, resulting in an RDF reserve for 28 years if power-plant usage came in at the expected 60,000 tonnes per year.
Siam Power is currently filing a bid for the waste-to-energy power-plant contract, which includes a planned application submission date for the associated power-purchase agreement to be signed next month, he explained.
The awarding of the contract is scheduled to be announced on November 17, ahead of a formal signing of an agreement with Nonthaburi PAO next March.
The organisation would buy the electricity generated at Bt5.78 per unit via the FiT (feed-in tariff) format, the managing director said.
Cherdsak declined, however, to go into detail about the power-generation capacity of the planned facility, as this would depend on the project conditions set by the PAO.
To ensure further recurring income, he said, the company was also preparing to bid for additional biomass power-plant projects under the next quota – for a total of 400MW – for the South.
TPCH also hopes to sign an agreement for an 80MW hydro-power project in Laos next month, which would take about four to five years to complete before commercial operations could commence, he said.
Meanwhile, the company this year expects to double last year’s revenue of Bt304.9 million, thanks to full operation of three biomass power plants – at Chang Raek and Mahachai in Nakhon Si Thammarat, and at Maewong in Nakhon Sawan – with a combined output of 30MW and an average FiT of about Bt4.54 per unit, the MD said.
As to the three biomass power-plant projects in the southernmost provinces for which it recently won the bidding, Cherdsak said they were expected to commence commercial operations in the final quarter of 2018, with an FiT rate of Bt3.12-Bt3.42 per unit.
TPCH currently has 11 power plants under operation with a combined 142MW of electricity production: 10 biomass plants generating 132MW, and one waste-to-energy power plant with a capacity of 10MW.
A further five projects are under development with a combined generating capacity of 82MW.
The company posted Bt50.17 million in net profit for the second quarter, up 804 per cent from the same period last year. Net profit for the first six months came in at Bt81.46 million, 10 times higher than in the first half of last year.

After a joint feasibility study on the project’s potential, the three partners decided to move the project forward with the early phase of the engineering study.
The investment decision will be made at the end of next year.
The agreement will lead to a joint venture that is expected to commence operations in late 2020.
A new plant in the Hemaraj Eastern Industrial Estate in Rayong will produce 13,000 tonnes per year of super engineering plastic (high-heat-resistant polyamide-9T or PA9T) and 16,000 tonnes per year of hydrogenated styrenic block copolymer (HSBC) products.
Kuraray will also conduct a feasibility study on producing 3-Methyl-1,5-Pentanediol (MPD), one of the company’s Isobutene derivatives, for which the plant will have the capacity to produce 5,000 tonnes per year.
PTTGC will supply butadiene and isobutene as key feedstocks for the plant. PA9T has outstanding thermal and mechanical properties, chemical resistance and super-dimensional stability, which make it ideal for producing lightweight vehicles. HSBC’s key properties are softness, thermal resistance, anti-slip, low toxicity, weather resistance and recyclability.
Many industries, including consumer products, automobile and construction, use HSBC, which is also suitable for medical and baby products and items such as swim fins, window seals and toothbrush handles.
Supattanapong Punmeechaow, president and chief executive officer of PTTGC, said yesterday that the partnership combined their strengths to bring the best products to market.

Ongard Prapakamol, chief executive officer of True GS, operator of True Select home-shopping channel, said yesterday that the overall home-shopping business was continuing| to grow by at least 20 per cent year on year, partly because |of the growth of the digital |terrestrial TV business. True Select expects to follow suit, targeting revenue of Bt1.3 billion this year.
“Unique and exclusive products are our key strategy at this stage. Therefore, the company is putting more focus on product diversity by adding a total of 5,000 stock keeping units from 1,500 SKUs by end of this year,” Ongard said.
True Select offers both exclusive and non-exclusive products ranging from household items and kitchenware to home appliances, electronic products, cosmetics and products of brands owned by Thai celebrities.
True Select has a 20-per-cent share of the Bt8-billion home-shopping market. True GS was a joint venture firm of TrueVisions, CP All, The Mall Group and GS Home Shopping from South Korea under registered capital of Bt340 million.
Ongard said digital TV had opened more windows for home-shopping products and services to be seen by mass audiences.
“Not only does True Select focus on free-to-air satellite and terrestrial channels as primarily platforms to advertise products and services, but it also offers the same service on online platforms to help customers get easy access to products as well as making a purchase,” he said.
Within two years, sales via online channels are expected to hit 30 per cent of the company’s total revenue, from less than 10 per cent now.
However, it appears to be a different story for O Shopping channel.
Sung Nak-je, chief executive officer of O Shopping, told The Nation that his company acknowledged that like other businesses, his company had been affected by the economic slowdown.
“At the beginning of this year, O Shopping believed that it could achieve its original target of at least 30-per-cent growth. But when it came to reality following weak consumption, we have had to lower our target to 15 per cent,” Sung said.
To boost sales, the company has emphasised promotional campaigns and special deals.
O Shopping programmes are also carried to mass customers via GMM Grammy’s free-to-air digital TV network on top of satellite-TV channels.
Last year, O Shopping’s earnings were quite impressive, surging by 53 per cent to Bt1.73 billion.
O Shopping was established under a 51:49 joint venture between GMM Grammy and South Korean home-shopping empire CJ O Shopping with registered capital of Bt540 million.