DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2015.1362
title: Long term electricity planning and CO2 mitigation in Vietnam and Thailand

description: The booming economy of Southeast Asia offers not only huge growth potential but also large and interlinked economic, social and environmental challenges. Thailand and Vietnam are developing countries. Thailand is the second largest economy in Southeast Asia, and heavily dependent on energy imports due to limited energy resources. Thus, Thailand aims to diversify fuels used for electricity generation. It is a country with a population of approximately 66.8 million in 2012. Out of all economic sectors in Thailand, the residential sector is the third biggest energy consuming sectors after transportation and manufacturing. In 2011, households in the rural areas consumed over 75% of the entire sector needs due to its largest share. Most of the traditional biomass and Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are also consumed by households. The residential sector is the key player in reducing electricity consumption and emissions related to electricity production.When compared to Thailand, Vietnam is a small country with a smaller economy. It is one of Southeast Asia fastest-growing economies. Its size is approximately two third of Thailand and the population is about 87 million in 2010. Vietnam’s final energy consumption is also smaller than Thailand and was approximately 50.79Mtoe in 2011. Vietnam has significant renewable and fossil energy resources; however Vietnam is developing a nuclear power program. The rapidly developing world is barreling toward a future that is unsustainable due to burgeoning populations, exploding energy demand, and water shortages. Thus far, energy and water, two of the most fundamental human and economic necessities, have been artificially separated from one another when developing energy and water policies.The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) was used to construct the energy models in Thailand and for Vietnam. Both LEAP and the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) models are used in the analysis. Three scenarios were considered for Thailand which is: i) Business as usual (BAU) scenario, ii) Demand side management (DSM) scenario, and iii) Promotion of renewable energy (RE) scenario. For Vietnam, in the WEAP model, the hydropower generation potential of Vietnam was analyzed under two different conditions for the period of 2010-2030 by using the WEAP model. Three scenarios have been modeled, namely i) the Reference Scenario (follows the reservoir rule curve with the existing operation policy), ii) Scenario 1-Full Capacity (hydropower plants are allowed to generate with their full capacities with no water availability constraint), and iii) Scenario 2-Return Flow 10% (rivers will get back 10% of the water that is not consumed at the demand sites). In the LEAP model, four scenarios were used which are i) business as usual (BAU) scenario, ii) long-term water availability scenario, iii) demand side management (DSM) scenario and iv) promotion of renewable energy scenario.Results of analyses show that in 2030, the energy demand in Thai residential sector is expected to reach 15,600ktoe which is 5,600ktoe increase from the base year. The DSM scenario would reduce total energy demand by 13.6% (savings of 1500 ktoe) and the RE scenario would reduce energy demand by 5.4% (savings of 600 ktoe) which is the lowest amount among three scenarios. The total CO2 emissions from the residential sector have increased gradually during the study period.For Vietnam, in the WEAP model, results show that, under the reference scenario, hydropower generation will drop to 18,099GWh in 2030 from 20,188GWh in 2010 since the water demand in other demand sector have increased with the growth of population and economic activities, while the water supply has remained unchanged. Furthermore, scenario 2-Return Flow showed that with the return flow of 10% of unused water for re-use, only 213GWh of extra electricity can be generated. On the other hand, in the Scenario 1-Full Capacity, it has shown that if hydropower plants will operate in their planned full capacity, 30,012GWh of electricity can be generated in 2030. In the LEAP model, the results were separated into two parts. The first one is the results of LEAP model without connection to WEAP model. In this part, the electricity demand is expected to increase from 48,597ktoe in 2010 to 55,18ktoe in 2030 in the BAU and the energy demand can be saved by 9,933ktoe in the DSM scenario, and only 7.714ktoe can be saved in the RE scenario when compared with the BAU scenario in 2030. TotalCO2 emissions in Vietnam’s residential sector are higher than Thailand during the same period.When the LEAP model connected to the WEAP model, the WEAP model analyzes the hydro generation so that the electricity generation is optimized.