Investment Incentive of Grid Connected Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant under Proposed Feed-in Tariffs Framework in Thailand

This study aims to present the proposed feed-in tariffs in grid connected photovoltaic power plants in Thailand. Under the Renewable and Alternative Energy Development Plan for 25 percent of final energy consumption in 10 years (AEDP 2012-2021), The government of Thailand has planed that the electricity generated by solar power will be 2,000 MW or 2,484 GWh. Thailand has moderate solar potential with average annual global radiation of 17-18 MJ/m2.day. Until recently, the incentive of investment to produce electricity from solar power is under government subsidization scheme, or Adder. However, the Adder itself has many constraints such as the limitation of the period of subsidization within 10 years for solar power. This paper investigates the proposed feed-in tariffs in solar photovoltaic through the whole lifetime of the projects by an energy model (RETscreen model) in three categories; (1) residential rooftop, (2) integrated ground mounted and rooftop solar photovoltaic, and (3) utility scale with the installed capacity larger than 1 MW. The result of this study found that the proposed feed-in tariffs with after tax return to equity of 11.0% are: $0.48/kWh for residential rooftop, $0.31/kWh for the integrated ground mounted and rooftop solar photovoltaic, and $0.28/kWh for the utility scale.