Thai firm acquires stake in Pennsylvania power plant


A Thai company will help light up Pennsylvania as BCPG Plc, the power generation arm of Bangchak Corporation, is purchasing a $260 million stake in Hamilton Holdings II, which operates two gas-fired power plants in the state.
 
The deal comes just two weeks after Thailand’s Electricity Generating Public Company (EGCO) acquired a 49 percent interest in Rhode Island State Energy Center, a 609-megawatt natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant situated in Johnston, Rhode Island.
 
Those were just two markers in an increasing trend of Thai power producers expanding overseas, including renewable power producers such as B.Grimm, which recently bought a power plant in Poland and announced that it would devote funds to buy or build more in Europe aside from East Asia.
 
Thailand is an energy importer, reliant chiefly on natural gas and Middle Eastern oil, but the country has begun its evolution to cleaner and more renewable energy production, culminating in growing investment by Thai energy firms abroad.
 
Hamilton Holdings II, the firm BCPG has bought a stake in, operates two power plants, using combined cycle gas turbine technology, in Pennsylvania. Niwat Adirek, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCPG, said that the BCPG Board approved a plan to buy a 25 percent share in Hamilton Holdings II from Franklin Power Holdings.
 
In February 2023, BCPG bought stakes in two Ohio energy companies: an 8.7 percent share in the 700-megawatt Carroll County Energy LLC and a 7.6 percent share in 1,182-megawatt South Field Energy LLC for a total of $115 million.
 
Nonetheless, BCPG’s main focus is still at home. The firm sees domestic growth after the government announced that renewable energy would make up 50 percent of the fuels used for electricity generation in the country, up from 12 percent last year, within the next two decades.
Photo courtesy of https://www.bcpggroup.com/en/news-medias/news/523/bcpg-expands-its-clean-territory-in-the-us-with-two-new-natural-gas-power-plants-in-pennsylvania-with-acquisition-of-426-mw-to-portfolio