Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market : Part 7 Date : 7 January 2026 ### 10) Policy Decision Points To move decisively, the Energy Ministry should make (and publicly communicate) five clear decisions: 1. Thailand will keep distribution networks as regulated infrastructure, but open them under nondiscriminatory access rules. 2. MEA/PEA will transition to neutral DSO roles with performance-based incentives. 3. Retail competition will be phased, starting with large customers tied to investment competitiveness and clean procurement needs. 4. Sandbox pilots (including P2P concepts) will be scaled only through standardized market rules and digital settlement infrastructure. 5. Social policy will be protected through explicit, transparent mechanisms—not hidden cross-subsidies. End—————————————————————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market : Part 6 Date : 6 January 2026 ### 8) A Sequenced Implementation Roadmap **Year 1 : Rulemaking + accounting separation** - Finalize enforceable TPA rules and standard contracts consistent with Thailand’s direction toward TPA development. - Require MEA/PEA accounting separation and publish cost allocation methods. - Stand up a compliance function for nondiscrimination monitoring. **Years 2–3 : Large-customer contestability + functional separation** - Enable large customers to choose suppliers/retailers and contract via TPA-enabled arrangements. - Implement functional separation and staff/process firewalls. - Launch a central switching/settlement platform for eligible customers. **Years 4–6 : Expansion to SMEs and households** - Scale switching and consumer protections. - Formalize aggregator participation and flexibility markets informed by sandbox learnings. - Introduce provider-of-last-resort and tighter retail conduct regulation. ### 9) Risks and Mitigations - **Risk: Cost shifting and tariff shock** - Mitigation: Transparent social tariffs funded explicitly; gradual reform; periodic tariff rebalancing. - **Risk: “Cream skimming” of profitable customers** - Mitigation: Universal service obligations; network charge design; POLR mechanism. - **Risk: Discrimination by incumbents** - Mitigation: Functional separation, audits, penalties, and transparent performance reporting. - **Risk: Reliability degradation due to poor settlement rules** - Mitigation: Strong imbalance settlement, technical standards, retailer credit requirements. To be continued————————————————————————————————————————————- #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market : Part 5 Date : 5 January 2026 ### 6) Pillar D — Build the Digital Market Layer (From Sandbox to System) Thailand has explored peer-to-peer (P2P) concepts and sandbox experimentation, showing technical feasibility but also illustrating why pilots cannot scale without rules for settlement, consumer protection, and network charging. Public information on P2P-related initiatives (including utility-supported pilots) reinforces that technology is not the main barrier—market design and regulation are. **Recommended digital architecture:** - **National energy data access standards**: Define who can access meter data, under what consent, cybersecurity, and privacy conditions. - **Central settlement and switching platform**: A neutral platform that processes switching, validates meter data, calculates network charges, and settles imbalances. - **DER aggregation rules**: License aggregators to pool rooftop solar, batteries, EV chargers, and flexible loads to provide services. - **(Optional) Renewable attribute tracking**: If policy wants credible green procurement claims, implement certificates/attributes with auditable rules. This digital layer enables competition beyond “selling kWh”—it creates a market for flexibility, reliability services, and customer-centric products. ### 7) Reliability and Investment: Recasting MEA/PEA as DSOs A reformed market must strengthen—not weaken—grid operations. The future-facing role for MEA/PEA network arms is the **Distribution System Operator (DSO)**: actively managing DER, congestion, voltage, fault response, and hosting capacity. To support this, shift regulation toward **performance-based incentives**: - Reward reductions in technical losses, outage duration, and connection times. - Reward DER hosting capacity and timely interconnections. - Penalize poor service quality and discriminatory behavior. This aligns utility incentives with modernization and public value, while allowing competitive retailers and service providers to innovate. To be continued—————————————————————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market : Part 4 Date : 4 January 2026 ### 4) Pillar B — Unbundling to Remove Conflicts of Interest (Without Privatizing the Grid) Even with a TPA code, monopoly power can persist if the incumbent controls both the network and the retail relationship. The practical solution is **unbundling**—not necessarily ownership separation at the outset, but immediate accounting separation and staged functional separation. **Stage 1: Accounting separation (Year 1)** - Separate regulated network costs (capex, opex, depreciation, losses) from competitive retail and service costs. - Prohibit cross-subsidies and require cost allocation audits. **Stage 2: Functional separation (Years 2–3)** - Create independent management, performance metrics, and “Chinese walls” between the network operator and any affiliated retailer. - Establish compliance obligations and penalties for discrimination. This approach maintains public ownership while removing the incentive and ability to self-preference. It also makes tariff reform and investment planning more credible to both customers and investors. ### 5) Pillar C — Retail Competition (Phased Contestability That Protects Households) Retail competition should be introduced in phases, because the capability requirements (metering, settlement, consumer protection) expand dramatically when households are included. **Phase 1: Large customers (Years 1–2)** - Allow customers above a threshold (e.g., >1 MW or a defined annual consumption) to choose licensed retailers and/or contract via Direct PPA using TPA. - Focus on industrial zones, data centers, and export-oriented manufacturing where clean-energy procurement and price-risk management are urgent. Thailand’s Direct PPA policy discussion has already highlighted targeted early-use cases, making this phase aligned with current direction. **Phase 2: SMEs (Years 2–4)** - Introduce simplified contract templates, standardized disclosure formats, and default service options. - Encourage retailers to offer bundled services: demand response, energy efficiency, EV fleet charging optimization. **Phase 3: Households (Years 4–6)** - Enable switching for households only after: 1) wide smart-meter coverage (or equivalent interval data capability), 2) strong complaint/dispute channels, 3) clear rules against predatory pricing and misleading marketing, 4) a robust “provider of last resort” (POLR) mechanism. In all phases, MEA/PEA should retain (or a designated entity should retain) a regulated default supply obligation to ensure continuity and social protection. To be continued—————————————————————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

ขอบคุณ Thaitimes ที่ให้พื้นที่ในการแสดงผลงานทางวิชาการเพื่อปรับปรุงสังคมให้ดีขึ้น ขอบคุณ Manager online #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market : Part 3 Date: 3 January 2026 2) Guiding Principles for Reform A reform package must be anchored to a few principles that prevent liberalization from becoming either symbolic or harmful: - **Neutrality**: The network operator must not favor its affiliated retailer (or legacy supply arm) over competitors. - **Cost-reflectiveness with protection**: Wheeling and network tariffs should reflect costs, while social policy (lifeline tariffs, targeted subsidies) should be transparent and funded explicitly. - **Reliability first**: New entrants must meet technical and commercial standards; settlement and imbalance rules must protect the system. - **Consumer choice with safeguards**: Switching must be easy, billing must be clear, and dispute resolution must be strong. - **Scalable digital infrastructure**: Data access, smart metering, and settlement systems are the “market plumbing” that make competition real. 3) Pillar A — Third-Party Access as the Foundation (Move from Pilot to Rule) Thailand’s direction toward Third-Party Access and Direct PPA mechanisms indicates a policy pathway to allow qualified parties to move electricity across existing networks under regulated terms. The immediate need is to convert “permissioned exceptions” into a predictable, bankable rulebook that supports investment and competition. **Key design requirements:** - **Standardized connection and use-of-system rules**: Clear timelines, technical requirements, and standardized contracts for interconnection and wheeling. - **Transparent wheeling charges**: A published methodology that is stable enough for long-term contracting and investment decisions. - **Non-discriminatory access and information symmetry**: The network operator must provide the same queue management, outage information, metering access, and processing speed to all parties. - **Imbalance and settlement rules**: A workable mechanism to handle deviations between contracted and actual consumption/generation—especially critical as variable renewables and DER increase. A strong TPA framework also enables corporate decarbonization strategies by allowing a customer to match consumption with contracted clean generation under enforceable delivery and settlement rules. Thailand’s evolving Direct PPA framework discussions make this a timely priority for investment competitiveness. To be continue———————————————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market: Part 2 Date: 2 January 2026 Detailed Strategy 1) The Strategic Problem: Monopoly-by-Area in a System Becoming Competitive Thailand’s distribution structure is a classic case of “monopoly by territory.” While distribution wires often remain a natural monopoly, the **sale of electricity and energy services** is no longer inherently monopolistic. Technology has changed the cost curve: rooftop solar, behind-the-meter storage, smart inverters, EV charging, and energy management software increasingly enable customers to optimize consumption and even provide grid services. In this environment, geographic retail monopoly can become a barrier to innovation, a brake on clean energy procurement, and a source of persistent inefficiency. The central policy objective, therefore, should not be “breaking up the wires.” It should be **opening access to the wires** while ensuring reliability, fair cost allocation, and universal service. The question is how to accomplish this without destabilizing MEA/PEA finances, undermining cross-subsidies that protect vulnerable users, or introducing regulatory arbitrage. To be continued—————————————————————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1

Strategic Roadmap for Liberalizing Thailand’s Electricity Distribution Market: Part 1 Date: 1 January 2026 Thailand’s electricity distribution sector is effectively organized as two geographically exclusive retail-distribution monopolies: the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) serving Bangkok, Nonthaburi, and Samut Prakan, and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) serving the other provinces. This structure delivered reliability and scale in an era of centralized generation and predictable demand growth, but it now creates economic and strategic constraints in a power system increasingly shaped by distributed energy resources (DER), corporate decarbonization requirements, and digitalization. At the same time, Thailand is beginning to experiment with market-opening mechanisms—most notably the emerging Third-Party Access (TPA) framework and a direct power purchase agreement (Direct PPA) pathway that would allow certain customers to contract for electricity supply while using existing networks. Thailand’s draft/advancing TPA code discussions and the evolving Direct PPA framework signal a policy direction toward selective liberalization, but they remain limited in scope and must be designed carefully to prevent discrimination, cost shifting, and reliability risks. This report proposes an “Open Grid, Open Market” roadmap that preserves national ownership and public-interest obligations of distribution networks, while introducing regulated competition in supply and value-added energy services. The core reform is to separate (functionally and in accounting) the “wires business” from the “energy retail business,” so that MEA/PEA (or their network arms) operate as neutral Distribution System Operators (DSOs) providing nondiscriminatory access to all qualified retailers, aggregators, and prosumers. Four pillars define the strategy: 1. **Neutral network access via enforceable TPA**: Establish nondiscriminatory, transparent access to distribution networks with standardized connection, metering, settlement, and wheeling charges; align this with the evolving TPA code direction. 2. **Unbundling to remove conflicts of interest**: Implement accounting separation immediately and functional separation on a defined timeline to prevent self-preferencing and cross-subsidies that can entrench monopoly power even after “market opening.” 3. **Retail competition (phased contestability)**: Start with large customers and special economic zones, then expand to SMEs and households once metering, billing, and consumer protections are mature. 4. **A digital market layer for DER and P2P**: Scale learnings from sandbox pilots toward a regulated platform for aggregation, peer-to-peer trading, flexibility services, and transparent renewable attribute tracking (where policy chooses to adopt it). Thailand’s P2P trading discussions and sandbox-related materials illustrate both feasibility and the need for rules to move from pilots to an economy-wide framework. If executed with discipline, these reforms can (a) lower total system costs through competitive procurement and demand-side flexibility, (b) accelerate clean-energy investment by enabling corporate procurement and DER participation, and (c) improve service quality by shifting utility incentives toward reliability, efficiency, and modernization rather than volume-based retail margins. The transition must be carefully sequenced so that universal service, affordability, and grid stability improve—not erode. To be continued—————————————————————————————————— #DistributionMarketReform #Thaitimes #ManagerOnline #News1