(Photo: 123RF)Thailand plans to tighten the rules for investors in data centres and other businesses that use a large amount of electricity, requiring them to provide a bank guarantee or collateral to secure power purchases. Energy officials said the measure is designed to prevent investors from shifting projects to rival Southeast Asian countries competing for data centre investment. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) drafted the regulation, initially targeting data centre projects, with details on the size of the guarantee still to be finalised. In 2025, the BoI received 36 data centre proposals worth 728 billion baht, including hyperscale projects from the UK, Singapore, Thailand and Japan. The regulation does extend to data centre operators under the government’s pilot direct power purchase agreement scheme, which allows them to buy electricity directly from private power producers rather than through state utilities.
