Thai renewable power technology company Energy Absolute is planning to invest US$3 billion in a gigafactory project, betting on the prospect that electric vehicles and smart grids will soon catch on in Southeast Asia.
Deputy CEO Amorn Sapthaweekul told local Thai media that the company is in talks with four or five Thai energy companies, including state-owned oil and gas group PTT, to share the investment.
Energy Absolute intends to make partnership decisions later this year. It plans to set up a joint venture with a partner to run the factory, taking a 51% stake.
The gigafactory plan is divided into two phases. The first features a plant with a production capacity of one gigawatt-hour, which should open in the July-September period of 2019. Energy Absolute is expected to finance an investment of around four billion baht ($119 million) with its own capital.
The company aims to increase the capacity to 50GWh in the second phase. That would make the plant larger than the 35GWh factory for U.S. electric carmaker Tesla in the state of Nevada.
In March, CEO Somphote Ahunai had told Nikkei the company may need a partner to carry out a big project.
Suntech Palm Oil, the predecessor of Energy Absolute, started out as a biodiesel manufacturer in 2006. The company changed its name in 2008 and went public in 2013. It has tapped into the renewable energy markets, including solar and wind power.
Energy Absolute posted a net profit of about 3.8 billion baht for the fiscal year through December, on sales of around 11.7 billion baht. It made Taiwanese battery maker Amita Technologiesa subsidiary in 2017 to take advantage of the company’s lithium-ion technology.
Energy Absolute also plans to set up 1,000 charging stations for electric cars in Bangkok and elsewhere by the end of the year, before pushing into batteries.
Amorn told a local newspaper that the company will secure good locations before competition starts, and that he believes electric vehicles will become popular sooner than anticipated.
