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The Energy Ministry has reached an agreement with three independent power producers to delay supplying electricity to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thai- land (Egat) for another year.

National Power Supply, Siam Energy and Power Generation Supply were originally scheduled to supply power from 2012-14. However, Gheco-One will still start supplying Egat as planned in 2011.

Pornchai Rujiprapha, chairman of the ministry's committee tasked with fine-tuning the electricity-generating plan, said Egat would also delay a number of coal-fired and nuclear power plants by one year. A separate agreement was reached with neighbouring countries to push back supplying power to Egat by another year.

Electricity charges in the coming months will rise, due to aggregate subsidies. The Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday approved a 4.91-per-cent increase in power bills for the January-April period, because fuel tariffs rose 14.85 satang a unit to 92.55 satang on higher natural-gas prices.

Electricity charges will  rise from Bt3.02 a unit to Bt3.17. Commission chairman Direk Lawansiri said Egat must still shoulder a 2.37-satang-a-unit gap between the fuel tariff and the actual cost - generating an additional Bt1-billion cost to Egat, making the state agency's combined subsidy for electricity charges Bt20.97 billion.

Direk said if Egat wanted to rid itself of this burden, the combined subsidy must be factored into the fuel tariff, which could push the tariff to 44.57 satang and electricity charges to Bt21 a unit."The burden would be added to the fuel tariff in the next round," he said.

A ministry source said the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) would be lowered, with a base target price US$400 to $500 (Bt14,000 to Bt17,500) per tonne from an expected US$700. But the ministry will still raise the LPG price for industrial and transportation purposes.