Assessment of the carbon emissions reduction potential in Thailand’s power sector with high penetration of variable renewable energy sources and electric vehicles in the year 2030

Abstract

The power sector has substantial carbon emissions reduction potential that could achieve the new nationally determined contribution target in 2030 by increasing low-carbon technologies, e.g. variable renewable energy sources and electric vehicles (EVs). Therefore, two approaches were suggested in this work. In the first approach, Thailand’s power sector was modelled by using PLEXOS software to find the impact of the high penetration of variable renewable energy (RE) and EV charging load for the projected year 2030. The second approach proposed a demand–response and energy storage system solution with carbon pricing in the model to assess the targets. As a result, the electricity demand from charging EVs will cause a new peak demand at night, while the high variable RE penetration will cause curtailment in the power system due to excess supply at noon. Therefore, Thailand’s power sector has the potential for carbon emissions reduction by 45% with clean energy technologies, which could increase to 68% with carbon pricing, easily achievable by the nationally determined contribution target in 2030. However, these benefits could only be derived if various entities involved in the energy regulatory, transport and power sectors coordinate to implement the required technological and financial policies.