Kasikorn Securities flags ESG as turning point for Thai stock profits, names 10 beneficiaries

Danucha Pichayanan, Secretary-General of the National Economic and Social Development Council, in his capacity as a board member and secretary of the committee on policy for the operation of data centre businesses, disclosed that the criteria governing the data centre business are expected to be finalised and begin actual enforcement no later than mid-October, after various agencies submitted their data, covering current service providers, criteria for classifying data centre sizes, and average electricity and water usage. On the electricity criteria, the Ministry of Energy will have to set criteria controlling consumption volumes, with electricity rates to apply specifically to the data centre business group. As for the criteria governing each category of size, operators that meet the industrial-type criteria must be located in designated industrial estate areas, and this must not affect the household sector. He also expressed the view that hyperscale data centres should be set at an electricity usage level of 100 megawatts or more. The clarity of the actual criteria must await the board's consideration. On the timeline, after the deadline, a conclusion is to be reached within one month from the first meeting on 4 September, after which the process of drafting a policy specifically for data centres will begin, and a mechanism must be considered to prevent operations from becoming fragmented. As for which agency will be the host, that must await a further conclusion.

Energy Minister Eknat Prompan, speaking on the program "Talk with the Anutin Cabinet," outlined the direction of the country's energy structural reform through a new Power Development Plan, or PDP, built on three core principles: clean, secure, and fair. One key policy is the push for a people's solar project with total generating capacity of 10,000 megawatts, with this capacity reserved for the public and an installation size of about 5 kilowatts per household so that generating capacity does not concentrate among large operators, giving people the chance to produce their own electricity and sell surplus power back into the system to offset their bills. On funding, a solar system costs about 140,000 baht per system, and the Energy Ministry proposes helping with a down payment of 50,000 baht, leaving a burden of about 90,000 baht, while opening the way to seek loans from financial institutions. For the industrial sector, the government is pressing ahead with opening a direct clean power trading market, or Direct PPA, on a broader scale, with the National Energy Policy Council having approved guidelines to unlock Direct PPA to cover both data centers and industrial sectors that need clean electricity. As for measures to ease household power costs, the government is restructuring the electricity tariff by separating the public electricity cost from ordinary users' bills, along with a progressive tariff under which the first 200 units of electricity use are charged no more than 3 baht per unit, starting from the September 2026 billing cycle. Meanwhile, the new PDP will open the way to further study alternative energy and technologies, including hydrogen, geothermal energy, fuel cells, and small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, to prepare regulatory criteria, safety standards, and infrastructure for future technologies.