Pol. Col. Tawee criticized the "phantom electricity cost" of about 1.09 trillion baht, saying energy tycoons have "become too rich to tolerate." He declared it is the state's duty to urgently solve the public's hardships and suggested fixing the unfair structure to address the issue.
At 13:59 on 20 Apr 2026 GMT+7, Pol. Col. Tawee Sodsoong, party-list MP and leader of the Prachachat Party, posted a message viaFacebookregarding the issue of the "phantom electricity cost." He said the amount of about 1.09 trillion baht requires the government to urgently solve the public’s hardships. Electricity is a basic public utility essential for living, and it is the state's responsibility, as clearly stated in the constitution, that the state must own at least 51 percent and that services must not impose unreasonable burdens on the people.
Regarding energy policy and management, the state has the National Energy Policy Committee (NEPC) with 19 members chaired by the prime minister, and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) with 7 experts appointed by the king upon the cabinet’s recommendation. However, both committees have been questioned for being inactive, leading Thai people to bear unfairly high electricity prices. Although electricity involves complex technical issues, managing reserve systems and electricity pricing structures cannot be solved by simple arithmetic but require complex mathematics and engineering models.
Pol. Col. Tawee added that he agrees with the government’s policy declared to parliament to "promote and support clean energy such as solar energy in communities and government agencies, electric vehicles, and public transport." However, in reality, clean energy in Thailand’s past has become a nightmare designed to generate profits for private power plants through the "phantom cost" trap that draws money from the public to enrich investors via two main mechanisms:
1. Purchase price traps (Adder and FiT)
Adder is the additional purchase price system, Thailand’s early support scheme, where the state pays extra above the base electricity price. For example, if the base price is 3 baht and the Adder is 8 baht, producers receive 11 baht per unit. This system highly incentivizes production but is hard to control costs because payment is fixed per unit produced.
FiT (Feed-in Tariff) replaced Adder by setting a fixed purchase price for the contract duration (e.g., 5.60 baht per unit), allowing the government to more accurately calculate future costs.
FiTa (FiT Transition/Adjustment) refers to the difference between the FiT purchase price and the wholesale electricity price. This difference is collected from electricity users through the Ft charge on monthly bills, without public consent from the people whose money is used.
2. Structure of private power producers (SPP and VSPP)
SPP (Small Power Producer) are small power plants (10-90 MW), often natural gas plants in industrial estates or large biomass plants.
VSPP (Very Small Power Producer) are very small producers (under 10 MW), mostly rooftop solar, small solar farms, or biogas from livestock farms.
The purple and green charts focus on the combined impact of electricity purchases from private producers (SPP and VSPP) over a long period (1995–2025). They differentiate contract types: firm contracts guarantee fixed electricity delivery at specified times, reflecting costs for system reliability and standby plants, while non-firm, partial-firm, and VSPP contracts mainly involve intermittent renewable energy sources (like solar and wind) with irregular supply. This illustrates the overall system reliability cost, not just renewables.
The firm contract group (purple) subsidizes private plants about 445.069 billion baht as "standby payments" for plants ready to supply power even when not generating, shifting business risks from investors to the public (this excludes standby payments for large IPP plants).
The non-firm, partial-firm, and VSPP group (green) subsidizes private plants about 648.148 billion baht, reflecting clean energy promotion that lacked balanced cost planning and expanded rapidly since 2012. This policy shift is the main factor driving the rising total value, which the public has borne for 30 years.
This data shows that transitioning to clean energy and system reliability comes at a cost. The total of over 1.09 trillion baht is a burden the electricity system and consumers have borne over 30 years—money taken from the public by the state without their consent and given to investors in all power production businesses including SPP and VSPP. In 2024 alone, this burden reached about 120 billion baht involving both fossil fuels and renewables, creating wealth for private power producers, excluding stock market profit benefits.
Regarding the state’s electricity production share, part of the Constitutional Court ruling 1/2023 recommends balancing "energy security" and "public cost burden." It advises the NEPC and ERC to set frameworks or ceilings on the private electricity production share and reserve power capacity that affect electricity rates charged to the public, aligning with actual national electricity demand by period. Excessive reserve capacity causing public harm may be subject to action by other agencies or courts.
"Recent National Statistical Office surveys found that the highest public hardship is high living costs, expensive electricity, and fuel prices, with income insufficient for expenses—qualifying as 'excessive reserve power capacity causing harm to public interest.' Meanwhile, energy tycoons are 'too rich to tolerate.' Therefore, the government, through the NEPC and ERC, must fix the unfair structure to stop the "phantom electricity cost" from crushing the Thai people any further."