This Technology Transfer Advances Thailand's

• Nationally Determined Contribution that builds on the ambitious targets of the National Energy Efficiency Plan (2015-2036) to reduce the country’s energy intensity by 30% below the 2010 level in 2036.

Context

The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) estimated that about 2.1 GWh (2,100 million kWh) of electricity were consumed by street lighting nationwide in 2014; this is equivalent to 1.4 million metric tons of CO2. At the municipal level, it is found that public lighting services account for about 60%- 70% of the total electricity consumed by the municipality annually.

Street lighting technologies are improving rapidly and new products are introduced to the market every year. In addition to energy savings, most technology suppliers also claim benefits from lower operating and maintenance costs in the long-term. Although there is clear evidence about the benefits supported by positive results from PEA's demonstration projects, adoptions of energy efficient street lighting technologies at the municipal level have been still very slow. The key barriers that contribute to the slow uptake are the lack of confidence in investing these new technologies in a large scale and limited access to investment finance. Thus, raising confidence in saving results and long term performance of high energy efficient street lighting technologies, and designing project financing models that suit well with the Thai municipal context is the crucial step for promoting energy efficiency (EE) within the cities.

Assistance Requested

• Conduct comparative techno­ economic assessments of different EE street lighting technologies; and
• Design financial mechanisms for implementation of EE street lighting projects at the municipal level. This will catalyze the development and investment of practical and affordable EE lighting technologies in Thai municipalities and will complement the efforts done to date by PEA.

Relevant Technologies and Approaches

• Efficient lighting

Expected Benefits

Medium-term impacts:

• Enhance national capacities to implement EE street lighting technologies and practices

Long-term impacts:

PEA's cost of public lighting subsidy has been on a raising trend due to higher costs (of tariff purchased from the generation utility in Thailand, i.e., the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand or EGAT) and more extensive public lighting networks. Widespread improvement of public and street lighting systems and/or adopting more efficient street technologies in municipalities will help provide significant reductions in national energy consumption and GHG emissions from the current public lighting loads; including improvement of national energy security.

The expected output of the study is a report for EE street lighting for PEA, Thai municipalities and other third-parties. The report will include the following:

• Comparative techno-economic assessment of EE street lighting technology design options
• Financing models
• Road map and recommendations

The outcomes shall include adoption of findings and recommendations by PEA, municipalities and other third-party stakeholders leading to greater investments in EE street lighting technologies in Thailand.