Anutin Charnvirakul, Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, chaired a meeting of Team Thailand in Japan under the theme of the direction of Thailand-Japan relations at the Imperial Tokyo Hotel in Tokyo. Ekkapop Pianprasit, spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office, disclosed the details on September 21, 2026, at 9:30 a.m. local Tokyo time. The Prime Minister stated that the key factors transforming global economic relations are technology, the environment, and geopolitics, which mean that Thailand-Japan cooperation must be based more on mutual interests and must evolve into a partnership. The key approach is to shift from production for each other to co-production and to link Thailand and Japan within each other's supply chains. In the automotive industry, decades of cooperation have built a strong supply chain in the country, but the transition to electric vehicles, or EVs, has changed the competitive structure, and investors from other countries are playing a greater role in the battery, electronics, and semiconductor industries. The Prime Minister believes the next phase of cooperation should aim at direct investment and extend the existing supply chain into future industries, especially digital, electronics, and technology. On energy, Thailand will press ahead with reducing its reliance on fossil fuels and increasing clean energy such as solar and biomass power, while opening opportunities for the private sector and the public to participate in generating electricity through solar rooftops and selling surplus power back into the grid. He also asked Team Thailand to closely monitor the economic situation and Thailand-Japan relations, and said that the stability of the government, cooperation among coalition parties, permanent officials, and the armed forces is another factor Thailand can use to build confidence among Japanese and international investors.
SINGER reports surging demand for rooftop solar loans, targets 2026 sales of 15 million baht
Narathip Wirunchataphan, Chief Executive Officer of Singer Thailand Public Company Limited, or SINGER, disclosed that demand for rooftop solar loans in the third quarter of 2026 rose significantly and is expected to continue climbing in the fourth quarter of 2026 after the government expanded the framework for purchasing rooftop solar power from the public sector to 10,000 megawatts. Loan approvals in the third quarter of 2026 remained limited because homes must be surveyed first, which makes approval and closing take time, but the lending picture should become clearer from the fourth quarter of 2026 onward. The company has set a rooftop solar sales target of 15 million baht for 2026, with roughly 60% of total sales coming from customers who pay in full with cash and credit cards, a group of high-income earners and owners of large homes, while loan customers are those looking to reduce their electricity burden, with monthly installments close to the electricity costs they save. On strategy, the company continues to focus on joint marketing with JGS Synergy Power Company Limited, or JGS, a partnership among the Jaymart group, SINGER and GUNKUL, while serving customers through two loan formats: SG Finance Plus for upcountry customers who are SINGER's traditional base, and a partnership with ICBC (Thai), or ICBC, for customers in Bangkok and its vicinity. On 28 September, SINGER will hold a press conference featuring SG Subscribe+ for rooftop solar, along with a service that checks electrical systems and cleans them every six months.
Castillo Engineering Hires Two Vice Presidents to Scale Utility Solar and Storage
Castillo Engineering has appointed Aaron Carrillo as Vice President of Operations and Devin Radovich as Vice President of Sales and Marketing to lead its next phase of growth in utility-scale solar and energy storage engineering. The two previously worked together at Renewable Energy Systems Americas, a partnership the Maitland, Florida firm says will accelerate its scaling of utility-scale engineering capacity. Carrillo, who served six years in the Arizona Army National Guard and earned his engineering degree from ASU, spent over a decade scaling engineering organizations at Tesla and EVS; at Tesla he grew his own PV and BESS team from 25 to 70 designers, and at EVS he helped expand the engineering team from 20 to 60 employees while raising utility-scale project throughput from 3-5 projects per year to 20-30 per year. Radovich brings 30 years of construction and energy experience, including nearly 15 years in renewables, and has developed and delivered nearly 3 GW of solar, wind, battery storage, and transmission projects. At RES, the pair championed black steel piles in place of galvanized steel on one utility-scale project, saving more than $7 million and cutting lead times in half.
Morgan Stanley Flags Deepening SpaceX-Tesla AI Ties Ahead of SpaceX IPO
Morgan Stanley has identified expanding technological and operational links between SpaceX and Tesla, the two Elon Musk-led companies pursuing artificial intelligence applications in robotics, energy and manufacturing. In a note led by analyst Adam Jonas, the bank said the companies share tech, talent and infrastructure in a shared mission of converting energy to intelligence, and it cited SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell saying there are synergies between Tesla and SpaceX and a convergence in what both are trying to accomplish. The bank counted 71 references to Tesla in SpaceX's S-1 registration filing, of which 34% concerned direct collaboration between the companies and 41% related to governance matters and transactions between related parties. Areas of cooperation include Terafab, a semiconductor manufacturing project being developed in Texas with Intel whose total construction cost has reportedly been estimated at more than $119 billion, and joint work on an AI agent platform called Macrohard. SpaceX also buys batteries and vehicles from Tesla, including $506 million in Megapack energy storage systems and $131 million in Cybertrucks during 2025 to support the Colossus computing cluster, while both companies target annual vertically integrated solar manufacturing capacity of 100 gigawatts in the United States. Morgan Stanley described a reciprocal arrangement in which SpaceX supplies Tesla with computing resources and satellite connectivity while Tesla contributes robotics, energy storage and manufacturing expertise, with SpaceX computing capacity projected to reach 4.9 gigawatts by the end of 2027 and terrestrial capacity expected to rise to 15.3 gigawatts by 2031. Tesla is integrating Starlink satellite connectivity into its vehicle range beginning with Cybercab, and Morgan Stanley noted Tesla employs more than 135,000 people, over six times SpaceX's workforce. The analysts said this reveals a wide open lane in physical AI that the two companies may be uniquely capable of addressing, separately or, more likely, jointly, though the assessment reflects Morgan Stanley's expectations rather than a confirmed outcome.
