Germans seek Thai CDM partners

       EnBW, the third-largest German energy utility, is searching for Thai partners to jointly develop a dozen clean development mechanism (CDM) projects in Thailand, its first such foray overseas.
       Each 10-megawatt biomass power plant would cost 12.5 million (about 600 million baht), and EnBW will invest both equity and project financing if required.
       "Thailand is among the world's top potential locations for CDM projects because you have a lot of supplies of biomass, as well as a stable business environment," said Boris Dossmann,who is in charge of EnBW CDM projects in Southeast Asia.
       The German utility, which has installed generating capacity of 15,000 MW, will buy all credits from CDM projects for its own consumption, which amounts to 2.5 million certified emission reduction (CERs) per year.
       CDM is a concept that allows developing countries such as Thailand to sell carbon credits to industrialised nations that have emission reduction obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
       Thailand is among the 10 focus countries of EnBW's climate programme alongside Vietnam, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda and others in Central and South America, with planned equity investment of $700 million.
       EnBW is among six German firms at a three-day business matchmaking seminar organised by the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce from yesterday.
       In a presentation at the forum, EnBW is looking for Thai partners who can supply biomass of at least 10,000 tonnes per month, or large amounts of waste water from starch, ethanol, palm oil or food and beverage production.
       The first CDM project of EnBW in Thailand is expected to be set up within this year, said Mr Dossmann.
       Kurujit Nakornthap, director-general of the Department of Mineral Fuels at the Energy Ministry, said Thailand was interested in and looking forward to producing biogas from biomass such as rice straw, palm leaves, bagasse or animal feed, common raw materials for the fuel.
       But despite the abundant supply of biomass, Thailand still faces some obstacles to developing renewable energy, including in vast, open agricultural areas.
       "In some areas where there is an abundant supply of biomass, the increasing number of renewable energy power plants, especially those using biomass, has intensified competition for the supply. This has driven up the prices of fuel crops to unreasonable levels," said Mr Kurujit.
       Also, finding the right balance between the increasingly conflicting demands for using land for energy crops and for food crops is a challenge.
       "The idea of developing renewable energy is not to switch the use of land from food crops to energy crops, but to find unused or wasted area to plant energy crops and leave the original foodcrop areas unharmed," he added.
       Mr Kurujit said biomass would have a significant share in Thailand's energy consumption in 2022 when the use of renewable energy sources is targeted to rise to 20% from only 6% at present.