Thailand’s Provincial Electricity Authority announced a plan to invest THB253bn (USD7.4bn) on projects such as smart meters and electric vehicles (EVs) to accelerate its efforts toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Specifically, the plan allocates THB103bn (USD3bn) towards energy storage systems and THB2.8bn (USD82m) towards EV charging infrastructure. The first tranche of the investment plan, worth THB8bn (USD23.4m), has been approved by Thailand’s Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council.

Thailand pledged at last year’s COP26 global climate summit to become carbon neutral by 2050 and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2065. The Thai government considers the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry to be an important aspect of its green development plan and has set a national goal of becoming a NEV production hub and export base. Thailand plans to have 30% of locally manufactured new automobiles to be zero-emission by 2030 and all locally manufactured new cars to be zero-emission by 2035. Accordingly, the country has enacted a number of policies to support the local NEV industry. For example, Thai buyers may pay a lower tax rate of 2% for NEV purchases compared to 8% for traditional automobile purchases. Thailand sold 1,056 EVs in 2020, then 3,994 in 2021, representing a 364% increase in EV sales. However, the 2021 EV sales volume takes up just 0.5% of overall vehicle sales in the country.

Sources:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2299010/pea-allots-b253bn-for-projects-over-10-years

https://www.ccpit.org/a/20220221/20220221dqh5.html

https://energy.pku.edu.cn/xsdt/sznyyw/336e04679851495988c7d05dd2b67001.htm

http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2022/0224/c1002-32359188.html

https://new.qq.com/omn/20220317/20220317A04WPG00.html