DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2015.29
title: RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR A SUSTAINABLE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY FOR PATHUM THANI PROVINCE IN THAILAND

description: Nowadays the renewable energy implementation and developmentis being widely discussed in Thailand with its 20-Year Energy Efficiency DevelopmentPlan (2011 - 2030) and additionally the 10-Year Alternative Energy Development Plan2012 - 2021 (AEDP 2012 – 2021), which is targeting on increasing the share ofrenewable energy and alternative energy uses by 25 percent instead of fossil fuelswithin the next 10 years. To reach such an ambitious setting target, several measuresmust be established with data supports from relevant feasibility studies. In this Thesis,a province is being considered as a model to evaluate the renewable energy potentialand a 100 % renewable electricity supply is employed in this province. It is proposedto be a feasibility study and Pathum Thani, a province in the vicinity of Bangkok, isselected as a case study. Different scenarios are discussed and analyzed for theirpossibilities in terms of technical, economic and environmental aspects.This thesis strongly focus on the renewable energy potential of the Pathum Thaniprovince in Thailand. A simulation model has been developed to simulate the hourlyelectricity potential of several renewable energy sources and their interaction whiletaking the actual electricity consumption of the province into account. Differentscenarios to achieve a 100% renewable electricity production from renewable energieshave been evaluated and verified with an hourly simulation, using the electricityconsumption of the year 2012, solar radiation of the year 2012 and Biogas and Biomassfeed stock of the year 2012. The hourly consumption and simulated production haveivbeen found to be mismatched to show possible weak points and bottlenecks of differentscenarios. Furthermore the total costs, including investment costs, operation,maintenance and reinvestment costs have been considered to calculate the finalelectricity costs for each system respectively. To limit the scope, not every site has beenmeasured and evaluated separately, however with the information given by the LandDevelopment Department Pathum Thani and the ArcGis software, a good overview canbe made and possible sites can be evaluated. This methodology has been used toevaluate the rooftop area for the so called Small Solar installation. However as a casestudy the rooftop area of the major university bodies in Pathum Thani has beenevaluated using Helioscope software and then been simulated. Furthermore thediscussion about agricultural products used for Biogas or being used for food supplyhas not been regarded as this study will focus on the technical possibility and the generalrequirements to fulfill the 100% renewable electricity supply. Different available landareas have been evaluated and categorized according to size, actual use and soilconditions. For the solar energy simulation, the actual radiation data from theMeteorological Department of 2012 has been implemented into a ‘PVsyst’ simulationsoftware, in which a standard plant is used as a reference. Several scenarios inclusive aNapier grass scenario are displayed to possibly cover 100% electricity supply byrenewable energies. The most optimized system appears to be a system consisting onPV Solar Large scale installations on 1/25 covering the area of the soil conditionnumber 11 and the rest of the respective area used as Biogas feedstock by convertingthe paddy rice fields to Napier grass fields. The system would require the less storagecapacity and the price is optimized and the costs per produced kWh inclusive ofnecessary storage, considering a 25 years lifetime could be 0.126 USD/kWh.The fact that the study does not consider the capacity of each individual substation butfocus on the overall renewable energy potential would require a detailed and sustainablestudy on actual conditions and location of substations to more sustainable plan differentscenarios and moreover allocate the potential and regions based on the transformer andfree transformer capacity of each PEA substation