## 1 Introduction  
Thailand is a developing country whose manufacturing sector relies heavily on energy. From Figures 1-3 it can be observed that within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Thailand has the highest electricity consumption per capita and the highest electricity production from oil sources among all ASEAN countries, excluding Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore, which have larger economies than Thailand. In contrast, Thailand has the lowest share of combustible renewables and waste compared to its neighboring developing countries with smaller economies, such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Lao PDR. Thailand's economic expansion has been driven by industrialization, information, urbanization, and agricultural modernization, all of which rely heavily on energy consumption. According to the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board, Thailand's electricity consumption grew at an average annual rate of 3.5% between 1990 and 2019, while the economy expanded at an average annual rate of 3.7% over the same period. This suggests a potential correlation between electricity consumption and economic development in Thailand. 10 years (average from 2013 to 2023), electricity consumption was distributed as follows: the industrial sector accounted for 46.7%, the household sector for 25.1%, the business sector for 24.0%, and other sectors for 4.2% of the country's total electricity consumption. Within the industrial sector, the highest electricity-consuming industries include food processing, steel and basic metals, rubber and rubber products, electronics, plastics, and textiles. In the business sector, the largest electricity users are primarily tourism-related services, including hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, apartments, guesthouses, department stores, and retail and wholesale establishments [4]. As illustrated in Figure 5, the trends in energy consumption and economic growth from 2015 to 2022 were closely correlated. Electricity can be generated from both renewable and non-renewable energy sources (Figure 6a,b). When electricity is generated from renewable sources, it can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, electricity generation based on non-renewable sources has been found to have a negative impact on environmental quality, particularly when consumption increases [6]. Figure 6a,b show that more than 85% of electricity generation in 2015 and 71% in 2022 came from non-renewable sources. This indicates that electricity generation in Thailand still largely relies on traditional energy sources, which are associated with high emissions during the production process and are gradually being depleted. This highlights the unsustainability of Thailand's current electricity consumption patterns. Figure 4: Electricity consumption by sector for 2015–2022. Source: Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO [5]). Figure 5: Growth rate of electricity demand and economic growth for 2015–2022. Source: Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO [7]). Thailand consumes a high amount of energy, with relatively limited domestic energy resources compared to its neighboring countries. Thailand is the largest energy consumer in ASEAN and imports significant amounts of natural gas for electricity generation, ranking second only to Singapore, which has a larger economy. As a result, Thailand is the most reliant on imported natural gas among the ASEAN countries [9]. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), the state-owned electricity producer, accounts for 40% of the country's total electricity generation capacity. To reduce dependency and spread the risk associated with relying heavily on natural gas, particularly from neighboring countries, the Thai government has developed a plan to diversify the energy mix. This includes reducing the current 70% reliance on natural gas by increasing the share of coal in electricity production while incorporating clean coal technologies to mitigate environmental impacts [10].