DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2020.68
title: The role of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Thailand’s low carbon society

description: Since 1995, Thailand has been a member in non-annex I parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Regarding the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation endeavors of Thailand to support the Kyoto protocol, Thailand’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (Thailand’s NAMAs) as the voluntary commitment will reduce the GHG emissions by 7 to 20 percent compared to its business as usual (BAU) in the energy and transport sectors within 2020. The 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris agreed to limit global surface temperature below 2-degree when compared to pre-industrial revolution and will try to cap the temperature increase to 1.5-degree. To undertake ambitious effort with more contributions to combat climate change, the Thailand’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) intends to reduce its economy-wide GHG emissions, covering all economy-wide excluding Land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) by 20 percent and up to 25 percent with adequate support from the BAU emission level in 2030. The transport sector is one of the important contributors of increasing energy consumption and GHG emissions in Thailand. Due to rapid development of transport infrastructure and technologies, patterns of energy consumption in this sector as well as emissions have been changed considerably. This thesis assesses the potential of GHG emission reduction by the use of renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) in Thailand’s NDCs and identifies change of the technologies and fuel consumption pattern in Thailand’s transport sector in order to achieve the 1.5-degree global climate target. The log-mean Divisia index method I (LMDI-I) and Asia-Pacific Integrated Model/Enduse (AIM/Enduse) are selected for the analysis. The decomposition technique of additive LMDI-I index method to analyze influencing factors in the passenger road transport in Thailand during 2007-2017. The AIM/Enduse is employed to investigate the decarbonization pathways achieving 2-degree target during 2015-2050, extended from the first Thailand’s NDC. Three scenarios of counter measures were formulated, namely the extended NDC 2050 (ExNDC2050), the 2-degree target 2050 (2D2050), full battery electric vehicle implementation (EV100) and full bio-fuels implementation (BE100). Results from LDMI-I method indicate that the increase of population and country’s standard of living pushed purchasing power up resulting in energy efficiency improvement. Fuel share and emission factors affected on decreasing GHG emissions. The decreasing GHG emissions from fuel share and emission factors revealed the success of biofuel promotion in the road transport. Results from the AIM/Enduse suggests that the emission pathway in the ExNDC2050 scenario will be higher than the 2-degree target. Thailand’s NDC measures in the transport sector are not in-line with the 2-degree and 1.5-degree targets. GHG emissions in the transport sector will be in-line with the 2-degree target when the BEV, E100 and B100 are fully implemented. The 2-degree target can be achieved when the combined measures of the BEV and the bio-fuels are implemented in the proportion of BEV to bio-fuels of 75:25 or 25:75 vice versa. Finally, the policy implication on energy efficiency and CO2 emissions suggests that Thailand should promote energy efficiency improvement, public transport, bio-fuels and electric vehicles. Moreover, Thai government should encourage renewable or cleaner electricity generation.