Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

One of the PDP 2010 stated objectives is to reduce GHG or CO₂ emissions contribution from the power sector. The government has often claimed that the PDP 2010 will lead to a lower CO₂ emission per kWh produced (‐4.4% by our calculation). This is only half the story. The total GHG emission does not go down; in fact it will almost double – increasing 97% in 2030 compared to 2010. This is because total emissions are equal to GHG intensity (CO₂ emission/kWh) times the total number of kWh of expected demand. Projected consumption of electricity (kWh) more than doubles from 2010 to 2030.

In contrast, the total emissions in the case of PDP 2012 will increase by only 3.7% while the per capita CO₂ emission is down 7.7% (see Table 22 below). This is mainly due to a shift away from inefficient lignite‐, coal‐ and gas‐fired generation and significant investments in energy efficiency, which are carbon‐free, as well as in high‐efficiency cogeneration.

Table 22: Comparison of CO₂ emissions between PDP 2010 and PDP 2012. (kt = kilotonnes)

The calculations in Table 22 are based on pollutant emissions assumptions shown in Table 23. Note however that the figures for emissions from hydro‐electricity, originally based on figures in temperate Europe, are not reliable or directly applicable to Thailand and its neighboring countries. Studies have shown that tropical reservoirs are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions.[15] There are to date no real attempts to quantify and account for these emissions in the region.

Table 23: Assumptions used in calculating different types of emissions from power generation. Source: (Sukkumnoed, 2007) p. 183.

[15]	See (McCulley, 2006) for a review of such studies.