Eastern Printing’s Kyoto solar plant up and running

SET-listed Eastern Printing Plc (EPCO), a printing service provider that has diversified into the energy sector, started commercial operations of its solar power plant in Kyoto, Japan this week, with the expectation that it will help generate more revenue this year.

Chief executive officer Weera Louwita was said the solar power plant is a 9.99-megawatt project, with a fully-installed capacity of 11.99MW.

He said the company invested in its solar power plan in Japan through its subsidiary and the plant started commercial operation yesterday.

“The company will realise additional revenue from the new solar power project from now on,” he said.

The new income is expected to help offset falling profit in the third quarter of this year.

The company posted a total revenue of 181 million baht in the third quarter, down by 0.91 million baht in the same period of last year.

Due largely to rising costs and expenses, net profit in the third quarter was 8.68 million baht, down 82.7% from the same period of last year when it had a 50.1-million-baht profit.

In the first nine months of this year, the company posted total revenue of 615 million baht, down 1.8% from 626 million baht in the same period of last year.

Net profit in the first nine months was 189 million baht, up 0.2% from the same period of last year when it had a net profit of 188 million baht.

Sales revenue totalled 615 million baht, down by 11.3 million baht, or 0.8%, from the same period of last year. Printing sales rose by 750,000 baht but electricity sales dropped by 12.1 million baht.

In contrast, selling expenses rose to 88.8 million baht, up 24.4%, and electricity expenses increased by 25.4 million baht due to the preparation of due diligence on share acquisition of PPTC Ltd.

Early this year, the company acquired a 49.5% stake of PPTC, a small co-generation power producer with total capacity of 120MW.

The power plant is located on an industrial estate in Lat Krabang district in Bangkok and it began commercial operations to sell power to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand since March of this year.

Besides the acquisition, the company’s interest expenses also rose by 28 million baht from the same period of last year to 66.5 million baht.

EPCO closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at six baht, up 10 satang, in trade worth 13 million baht.

Solar farms are attracting investment from private companies. Among them is Eastern Printing, which sees its solar power plant in Japan starting commercial operation this week.