Business News

As one of the powerhouses of Asia-Pacific economic growth, Thailand invests heavily in electricity generating capacity to service its burgeoning major industries, including automotive and electrical manufacturing and tourism. The country, which has the second largest economy in South-East Asia after Indonesia, plans to increase total generating capacity from about 30,000 MW in 2009 to more than 50,000MW by 2021. * (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, EGAT) Of this total, well over a third will continue to be provided by Independent Power Producers (IPPs), private investment vehicles that work with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, EGAT, to provide the infrastructure capital needed to build new infrastructure and ensure that existing assets are operated at peak efficiency and optimum safety. The global Konecranes group has become a long-term partner in this process with the Southern Thai  KEGCO subsidiary of The Electricity Generating Public Company, EGCO, which is the first  independent power producer in Thailand . This public company that owns and develops generation units which cover diversified fuels such as natural gas, coal, diesel oil, hydropower and biomass, in accordance with the government’s policy on fuel diversification to ensure energy sustainability. One of EGCO’s earliest acquisitions, through KEGCO, is the 824 MW Khanom power plant, a major base load generator in the Nakhon Sri Thammarat province in Southern Thailand, where it operates a combined gas cycle turbine (674MW) and two barge-mounted thermal plants (150 MW). As the first generating station in Asia to achieve IS09002 quality certification Ð and as a winner this year of its seventh consecutive EIA environmental monitoring awards Ð Khanom has set out to be a model of safety and efficiency. It has adopted ISO 14001 and TIS 18001 OHSAS 18001: 1999 in its operating standards. KEGCO has also been awarded National Safety Awards for eight […]