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Thailand has submitted the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the United Nations Framework Conventional on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20 percent from the business-as-usual (BAU) level by 2030. According to the Thailand’s Power Development Plant (PDP2015) renewable energy (RE) is one of the key aspects of energy related environmental planning for Thailand. It plays an important role in GHG mitigation. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the potential of RE to reduce GHG emissions for Thailand’s NDC roadmap in the power sector compared to the target of Thailand’s PDP2015 through the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning (LEAP) model. The LEAP is employed to analyze future energy demand and emissions in the long-term planning during 2010-2030. The mitigation scenario offers sustainable potential of RE such as solar, wind, biomass, nuclear, hydropower, MSW and biogas. Four mitigation scenarios under RE were modeled. Mitigation 1 follows the PDP2015 and has 3 scenario options which are PDP1a (100% RE share in 2030), PDP1b (50% RE share in 2030) and PDP1c (25% RE share in 2030). Thailand’s NDC plan is applied in mitigation 2 (NDC2) with the reduction of GHG emissions by 20% in 2030 when compared to BAU. Results show that, in the BAU scenario electricity demand will increase to 26,163 ktoe and GHG emissions will increase to 175,118 kt-CO2eq in 2030. By adopting mitigation, total GHG emissions in 2030 can be mitigated by 41.69% in PDP1a, 23.75% in PDP1b, 13.60% in NDC2 and 10.40% in PDP1c when compared to the BAU. This result implies that Thailand have high potential to reduce GHG emissions by using RE and can achieve Thailand’s NDC target in 2030, even if they meet only a half of its RE target.

Climate change is a critical issue causing awareness of greenhouse gases (GHG) emission managements in many other countries around the world. The energy sector is the highest contributor of the global GHG emissions. In 2013, it contributes about 36 percent of total GHG emissions in Thailand. In 2015, Thailand submitted the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UNFCCC. The target of GHG reduction is 20 percent from the projected business-as-usual (BAU) level by 2030 in the Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Uses (IPPU), and Waste sectors; however, the level of contribution could increase up to 25 percent with support. In the roadmap of Thailand’s INDC, emission reduction in the energy sector is accounted for about 98 percent of overall reduction. The Energy Efficiency plan (EEP2015) and Alternative Energy Development plan (AEDP2015) are implemented in order to reduce not only energy consumption but also GHG emission in Thailand. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the GHG mitigation potential of those measures in order to identify the effort to achieve the INDC’s target in 2030. In this study, the mitigation potential of the energy plans is divided into four scenarios. In 2030, emissions in the energy sector in BAU will be 425,649 kt-CO2eq. Moreover, in the same year, results indicate that GHG emissions can be mitigated by 47%, 23%, 30% and 29% in the SC1, SC2, SC3 and SC4 scenarios, respectively when compared to the BAU. However, the INDC plan can reduce GHG emissions by 27% in the energy sector. It implies that one of the plans should achieve at least 75% of its target and another must achieve 50% of its target, Thailand will accomplish its INDC target.

The sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Thailand come from the energy sector, including power generation, transport, industries, buildings, and households. In 2016, the energy sector contributed 77 percent of total GHG emissions. Thailand's energy policies are the essential instrument to deal with GHG emission reduction under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The renewable energy (RE) plans aim at increasing the share of RE in final energy consumption while the energy efficiency (EE) plans aim at improving energy efficiency as well as reducing fossil-fuel consumption. GHG emission mitigation will result in several co-benefits such as increasing energy security and decreasing local air pollutants. Therefore, this study analyzes potentials of GHG emission reduction during 2015–2050 from utilization of renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency using the Long-range Energy Alternative Planning system (LEAP) model. Results include potentials of domestic RE and EE measures to achieve Thailand's nationally determined contribution (NDC). Moreover, it was found that to meet Thailand's first NDC of 20 percent GHG emission reduction target in 2030, targets in the RE plan and the EE plan must be achieved by at least 50 percent and 75 percent, respectively, or targets in the RE plan and the EE plan must be achieved by at least 75 percent and 50 percent. In addition, the extended NDC scenario in 2050 is analyzed in the long-term perspective of Thailand showing 30.4 percent reduction when compared to the BAU. The policy implication includes promotion of energy efficiency, acceleration of the deployment of renewable energy and advanced technologies such as CCS, completion of transmission network for renewable electricity, zoning of biomass sources, and public awareness in climate changes., Energy; Ecology; Environmental Science; Environmental Engineering; Environmental Management; Environmental Pollution; energy system; GHG Emissions; renewable energy and energy efficiency; NDC; LEAP model; Thailand.

Roadmap to Thailand's NAMAs 2020 presents the pathway for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigations within 2020. This study proposes estimation of CO 2 countermeasures under 3 plans: the Alternative Energy Development Plan (AEDP) for 25% substitution of conventional energy within 10 years, the least cost greenhouse gas mitigation plan by the AIM/Enduse model, and the 20-year Energy Efficiency Development Plan (EEDP) during 2011-2030 and the transportation master plan by the Office of Transport Planning (OTP). This study also considers energy security and co-benefits from the proposed roadmap to reduce CO 2 emissions. Results of energy security and co-benefit analysis are presented. The roadmap to Thailand's NAMA 2020 will not only reduce CO 2 emissions but also increase energy security and provide several co-benefits, which enhance sustainable energy and environment development.