Long-term energy savings and GHG mitigations in Thailand’s building sector: impacts of energy efficiency plan

Abstract

Thailand’s final energy consumption has been continuously increasing in the building sector. In terms of electricity consumption, this sector is the largest electricity consuming sector, and accounted for 57.9% of total electricity consumption in 2013. The fossil fuel consumption is dominated by liquefied petroleum gas within these sectors. Therefore, the fossil fuel and electricity demand satisfying the end-user requirement substantially affect the climate change especially the contribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Changes of GHG emissions depend not only on the economic development but also on population growth. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to evaluate and provide the long-term energy saving potential and the GHG mitigation by the implementation of Thailand’s Energy Efficiency Plan 2015 (EEP2015) during 2010-2036. The energy saving potential and environmental impacts are analyzed by using the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning system (LEAP). The evaluation of energy saving potential and environmental impacts, the residential sector is divided into three areas namely; Greater Bangkok, municipal, and rural areas. The commercial sector is divided into eight building types including offices, hotels, hospitals, department stores, schools, hypermarkets, condominiums, and miscellaneous. The business-as-usual (BAU) scenario is excluded the energy efficiency improvement. While, alternative (AL) scenario includes all existing measures in the EEP2015. In the residential sector, the highest energy consuming and GHG emission area is the rural area. In the commercial sector, offices contribute the highest GHG emissions. Energy demand and GHG emissions in both sectors will increase from 12.8 Mtoe and 43.2 Mt-CO2eq in 2005 to 39.6 Mtoe and 131.1 Mt-CO2eq in 2036 in the BAU scenario. The study discloses that EEP2015 can reduce the energy demand and the GHG emissions in both sectors by 19.1% and 31.2% in 2036, respectively.