As the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia, Thailand is accelerating its transition toward a low-carbon economy, setting targets to achieve a 30% renewable energy share by 2030 and Carbon Neutrality by 2050. Recently, with the implementation of Thailand's Direct PPA policy and the advancement of renewable energy goals, Chinese enterprises investing in Thai new energy projects are entering a golden window of opportunity. Mastering compliance essentials and effective risk control are also the keys to success.

I. Overview of Thailand’s Energy and Power Regulatory System

The core of Thailand's energy policy is the **Power Development Plan (PDP)**. According to the latest **PDP 2024-2025** blueprint newly released by the **Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO)** ([https://www.eppo.go.th/](https://www.eppo.go.th/)), Thailand has explicitly identified "clean energy transition" as a national priority strategy.

Thailand plans to increase the proportion of clean energy power generation to over 50% by 2037. Notably, this new plan focuses not only on increasing generation capacity but also emphasizes grid resilience and flexibility. Consequently, Thailand also needs to establish a new type of power system to manage the grid integration requirements of intermittent renewable energy.

Through research conducted by Thailand-based lawyers from the Carbon Compliance Research Center of East & Concord Partners, it was found that when Chinese enterprises invest in wind, solar, and energy storage projects in Thailand, they often first focus on electricity price levels, subsidy policies, or project ROI. However, from practical experience, what truly determines whether a project can be successfully implemented and operate stably in the long term is often whether the understanding of Thailand's energy and power regulatory system is sufficient. Thailand is not a fully market-oriented power system; its new energy development path is deeply influenced by national planning and administrative regulation.

According to public information from the **Ministry of Energy (Thailand)**([https://energy.go.th/](https://energy.go.th/)),the**Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (DEDE)** ([https://weben.dede.go.th/](https://weben.dede.go.th/)),andthe **Department of Energy Business (DOEB)** ([https://www.doeb.go.th/](https://www.doeb.go.th/)), the Thai energy and power sector implements an institutional arrangement centered on government planning, with regulatory bodies handling specific execution and state-owned power enterprises leading operations. The Ministry of Energy, as the highest administrative authority in the energy field, mainly assumes macro-level policy formulation functions, including the overall coordination of national energy strategy, power development planning, and the direction of renewable energy development. The Ministry of Energy does not directly intervene in the approval of specific projects, but the Power Development Plan (PDP) it formulates and promotes largely determines the policy space and development pace of new energy projects.

The **Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC)** is the most critical regulatory body for new energy projects. The ERC is responsible for permit management, tariff regulation, and market order maintenance in the power industry. It possesses substantive regulatory power over generation permits, grid connection conditions, and electricity price mechanisms. In practice, almost every key node of a new energy project from project inception to production is closely related to the regulatory rules of the ERC. For foreign enterprises, understanding the ERC’s regulatory logic and enforcement standards is often more important than simply studying the legal provisions themselves.

The Thai power system has long been composed of three state-owned power agencies: the **Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT)**, the **Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA)**, and the **Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA)**. Among them, EGAT is responsible for the national-level generation and transmission system and is the core entity for power system operation and dispatch; MEA and PEA assume the functions of power distribution and sales in the Bangkok area and other regions of the country, respectively. This structure determines that Thai new energy projects are highly dependent on the national power system for electricity offtake. Power trading is not a completely free market behavior but is realized through contractual arrangements under government guidance.

It is precisely under this institutional background that Thailand has formed a "limited competition" power market model. Although private capital and foreign capital are allowed to participate in generation-side investment, the transmission and distribution links are still monopolized by Thai state agencies, and electricity prices are usually locked through regulatory approval or Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). For new energy projects, this model on one hand increases the predictability of project returns, and on the other hand, makes the project highly dependent on policy stability and contractual arrangements.

From a legal practice perspective, the core of Thai new energy investment does not lie in whether one can "enter the market," but in how to design a reasonable investment structure and risk allocation mechanism within the existing regulatory framework. The orientation of national planning, the discretionary space of regulatory agencies, and the dominant position of the state-owned power system in transactions together constitute the reality that new energy projects must face. East & Concord Partners suggests that Chinese enterprises investing in Thai energy projects need to conduct thorough research and understand the operational logic of this regulatory system before they can make relatively accurate judgments on the project's compliance path, business model, and long-term stability.

Overall, the Thai energy and power regulatory system has the characteristics of a relatively mature system and clear policy orientation, but with a strong administrative color. This both provides a certain foundation of stability for new energy investment and places higher requirements on the compliance capability and long-term judgment of the investors. For Chinese enterprises, taking this institutional background as the starting point for investment decisions, rather than as an after-the-fact response, often plays an important role in the success of new energy projects in Thailand.

II. Positioning of Wind, Solar, and Storage in Thailand’s Energy Policy

In China, wind, solar, and energy storage are often discussed together and regarded as the same category of "new energy assets." But in Thailand, wind power, solar power, and energy storage are not in the same policy stage. Under Thailand's current energy policy system, the functions they carry, the degree of policy support they receive, and the institutional regulations they face still have obvious differences.

From the overall direction, Thailand regards renewable energy as an important part of the energy structure transformation, which has been clearly reflected in previous National Power Development Plans and Alternative Energy Development Plans. Thailand's new energy policy emphasizes energy security, system stability, and controllable costs. New energy is not seen as a full replacement for traditional energy, but as a supplement and structural optimization tool for the national power system. This policy orientation directly affects the legal status of wind, solar, and energy storage.

As for wind power, Thailand included it in the renewable energy development system early on, but limited by natural conditions and land resources, the proportion of wind power in the overall energy structure has always been limited. Onshore wind power projects are mainly concentrated in specific areas with certain wind resource conditions, and their development is constrained by multiple factors such as land use, environmental assessment, and community acceptance. This makes wind power projects in Thailand often fewer, and preliminary demonstration at the legal and compliance levels is particularly important.

Benefiting from Thailand's natural climate conditions and the technological maturity of photovoltaics (solar), the policy status of solar in Thailand's new energy system is more explicit and has more continuity. Solar is regarded as one of the most practically feasible forms of renewable energy in Thailand. Lawyers stationed in Thailand from East & Concord Partners found in their research that the region enters summer as early as March, and residential electricity bills can reach thousands of yuan per month, with extremely high air-conditioning usage rates. To reduce the burden of electricity consumption for residents, Thailand has promoted the development of both utility-scale power plants and distributed solar through electricity price mechanisms and bidding projects at different stages. However, solar policy also shows clear planning-oriented characteristics; whether a project can be implemented often depends on whether it is included in the current policy arrangement, rather than simple market will. For investors, understanding the policy cycle and grasping the project window is often more critical than simply assessing technology or financing conditions.

In Thailand, energy storage is not regarded as an independent and mature power market entity, but is more positioned as an auxiliary facility serving power system stability and new energy consumption. Although the importance of storage is mentioned many times in policy documents, at the legal and regulatory levels, its business model, revenue mechanism, and regulatory attributes are still being gradually explored. In practice, storage projects often need to be attached to wind power or solar projects as part of the system supporting facilities, and it is difficult to form a clear and stable business logic alone.

Overall, Thailand adopts a policy path for wind, solar, and storage that advances step by step, adjusting while practicing. This path provides a certain stable expectation for investors, but also requires investors to have strong institutional understanding capabilities and a long-term perspective. For Chinese enterprises, only after fully understanding the true positioning of the three types of new energy in the policy system can they make more rational judgments in project selection, structural design, and risk control.

III. The Driving Effect of EU CBAM on Thailand’s Industrial Structure and New Energy Carbon Emission Reduction Attributes

The three-year transition period of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will be formally implemented in 2026, marking that carbon emission reduction obligations are gradually evolving from internal regulations of a single jurisdiction into institutional arrangements extending to external industrial chains through trade rules. For Southeast Asian countries, CBAM is not a directly applicable legal obligation, but through the carbon cost accounting of import and export products, it has in fact formed a continuous and clear driving effect on the industrial structure and energy choices within the region.

The Carbon Compliance Research Center of East & Concord Partners believes that from the perspective of mechanism design, CBAM does not use "whether new energy is used" as a judgment standard, but converts the energy structure problem into a quantifiable and priceable carbon compliance cost by linking the embedded carbon emissions of products with the EU carbon price. This institutional arrangement makes energy use methods, which were originally located at the upstream of the production chain and long regarded as internal corporate choices, start to directly affect the international competitiveness of terminal products. For enterprises that view the EU as an important export market, the energy structure is no longer just a cost item or part of an ESG statement, but is gradually becoming part of the carbon compliance and transaction conditions.

From the perspective of China and countries like Indonesia and Thailand that view the EU as an important export destination, the impact of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) does not stay at the level of direct export enterprises but is transmitted upstream along the supply chain. Even if a company does not directly export products to the EU, the fact that it provides raw materials or intermediate products for export-oriented enterprises may cause it to face emission reduction requirements from customers. This carbon compliance pressure, driven by downstream to upstream, is pushing some industries in Southeast Asia to re-evaluate their energy sources and energy use methods. In this process, new energy projects begin to show institutional value beyond the traditional scope of "power investment."

Under Thailand's current carbon compliance institutional environment, new energy projects do not directly generate certificates that can be used to offset CBAM obligations, but they provide a practical path for the improvement of a company's overall carbon footprint by reducing indirect carbon emissions in the power consumption link. Especially in cases where solar and wind power projects supply electricity to industrial users through long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), the change in power sources can be directly reflected in the product carbon emission accounting. This impact is not "green image enhancement" in an abstract sense, but in specific export scenarios, it can be transformed into a quantifiable carbon compliance advantage.

It should be noted that, same as the problems faced by China, what CBAM emphasizes is "whether credible carbon emission data can be provided." This means that the emission reduction attributes of new energy projects can truly exert institutional value only under the premise that they can be measured, verified, and comply with the requirements of relevant EU methodologies. From a legal practice perspective, this puts higher requirements on the carbon compliance design of new energy projects, including the integrity of power generation data, the clarity of power usage paths, and the traceability of carbon accounting methods.

Consequently, the value of energy storage projects will also gradually emerge. Although storage itself does not directly produce carbon emission reductions, by improving the stability and dispatchability of new energy power generation, it helps to increase the actual proportion of renewable energy in industrial energy use, thereby providing stable support for the use of green power. Therefore, for export-oriented industrial parks or large manufacturing enterprises, the combination of new energy and storage can be transformed from a "policy encouragement option" into a structural tool to respond to international carbon rules.

IV. Legal Essentials of Thailand’s New Energy Foreign Investment Access Rules, Industry Restrictions, and Common Investment Structures

When Chinese enterprises invest in wind power, solar power, and storage projects in Thailand, they usually do not encounter institutional obstacles in the form of "whether entry is allowed," but this does not mean that foreign investment access is an issue that can be neglected in practice. Compared with some jurisdictions that explicitly set shareholding limits or industry bans, Thailand adopts a relatively open access model for the new energy power generation field, but one that is highly dependent on supporting systems and administrative approvals. Its core feature does not lie in the foreign investment ratio itself, but in the overall design of the enterprise identity, business scope, and whether it conforms to specific legal frameworks.

From a legal structure perspective, foreign investment in Thai new energy projects first needs to face the basic rules established by the **Foreign Business Act (FBA)**. The Act does not list power generation activities as industries clearly prohibited or restricted for foreign entry, which provides institutional space for foreign participation in new energy power generation. However, in practice, project companies often still need to judge whether they touch upon restricted industries based on specific business content. Their truly possible restricted industries involve engineering construction, operation and maintenance services, supporting commercial activities, etc. Whether they constitute "restricted operations" needs to be assessed through prudent legal compliance evaluations. This ambiguity makes the foreign investment access issue in new energy projects more like a structural compliance topic rather than an issue of applying a single legal clause.

As for projects, the legal essentials of Thai new energy projects are more reflected in areas such as: land use, environmental impact assessment, local employment, community issues, and power grid connection conditions, all of which may form a substantive impact on foreign-invested projects without directly restricting the foreign investment ratio. Especially on land issues and community issues, for wind power and ground-mounted solar projects, land compliance and community issues are often one of the key factors determining project feasibility.

In this context, several relatively mature investment structures have gradually formed in the Thai market. The most common model is for foreign investors to establish a project company in Thailand, which holds the power generation permit and signs a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a state-owned power agency. Under this structure, the project company usually exists as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), and its business scope, equity structure, and financing arrangements are all designed around the specific project. The advantage of this model is that the structure is clear and the regulatory path is relatively explicit, but its prerequisite is systematic preliminary design of foreign investment access, business permits, and land arrangements.

Another common structure is to promote new energy projects through a joint venture with a local Thai enterprise. This arrangement is not a mandatory legal requirement, but in actual operation, it often helps to reduce costs in land acquisition, administrative communication, and community coordination. It should be noted that a joint venture structure does not necessarily mean that compliance risks are reduced; on the contrary, shareholder rights arrangements, control design, and exit mechanisms often become high-incidence areas for subsequent disputes. From a lawyer's perspective, a joint venture is not a "universal solution" to solve the foreign investment access issue, but a commercial and legal tool that requires fine design.

For energy storage projects, since storage has not yet formed a completely independent market positioning at the regulatory level, its investment often needs to be attached to power generation projects. This requires investors to reserve sufficient flexibility in the structural design to support the stability and quality of green power, and also to consider responding to future regulatory policy adjustments.

Overall, the field of new energy power generation in Thailand encourages foreign investment access, but its compliance difficulties are concentrated in structural design, business scope definition, and the design and connection of supporting systems. When Chinese enterprises enter the Thai market, instead of focusing on formal foreign investment ratio restrictions, they should invest more energy into the compliance and sustainability design of the overall investment structure. This front-end legal judgment is often more cost-advantaged than after-the-fact adjustment and is more conducive to the long-term stable operation of the project.

Source: East & Concord Pariners

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