Thailand doubles clean energy target, adds nuclear power — SkimNews
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- Thailand will double its clean electricity target to 60% within 25 years and include nuclear power for the first time in an updated 25-year national power plan due in October.
- Energy Minister Akanat Promphan defended a 200 billion baht (S$7.7 billion) renewable-energy spending proposal in Parliament, including rooftop solar for villages.
- Natural gas — mostly imported LNG — currently powers over 60% of Thailand's grid, while renewables contribute only ~15%, leaving the country exposed to seaborne price spikes from conflicts like the Iran war.
- The previous power plan was revised in 2023, before both the Iran war and the AI-driven demand surge from data centres, cloud computing, and advanced manufacturing investments.
- Officials are studying small modular reactors as a stable, low-carbon baseload to complement intermittent renewable generation.
Why it matters: Thailand's 200 billion baht renewable build-out and nuclear addition target two distinct pressures at once: geopolitical LNG exposure demonstrated by the Iran war, and an AI-driven demand spike that the 2023 plan did not foresee. Households and data-centre operators are now competing constituencies — get the mix wrong and either consumer power bills spike or the billions in data-centre investment lose their power supply.
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