Thailand's energy consumption

Official Name: Kingdom of Thailand.

Summary: Historically, Thailand supplied its energy needs from fuelwood, but after World War II, the need for energy grew. In recent decades, the country’s demand for energy has increased in response to its growing economy.

With the establishment of the Siam Electric Company in the 1880s, it became possible to generate electric power in Thailand, which was largely produced by the use of steam from the combustion of rice husks. Historically, the Thai population has had sufficient supplies of fuel from wood charcoal, commonly available from nearby forests and thickets.

Until the 1950s, wood was the first major source of energy for the country’s limited industrial sector, followed by rice husks and bagasse (the dry pulp remaining from sugarcane after its juice is extracted). In the 1960s, wood continued as a source of fuel, mainly for Thailand’s rail transport. In the 1970s, large natural gas deposits were discovered in the Gulf of Thailand, and these have great potential for the domestic production of hydrocarbons.

Modern History

Following World War II, the industrial sector began to revive and Thailand’s need for electricity grew. However, in response to the limited and unreliable supply of the electric sector, industrial firms and businesses installed generators, which were fueled by imported oil.

With the expanding population, in 1958 the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) was established for the purpose of generating and supplying power to the capital city, Bangkok, and adjacent provinces and counties. In 1969, the Thai government set up the Yanhee Electricity Authority, which was joined with the Lignite Authority and the Northeastern Electricity Authority and renamed the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) as part of the effort to promote the development of hydroelectric power in the country.

The increasing power demand in Thailand led to the development of several facilities. The first hydroelectric generating facility was the Phumiphon Dam, constructed in 1964 on the river Mae Nam Ping; it had a capacity of 429 megawatts, which had increased to 560 megawatts by 1979. The first oil-fired plant, the North Bangkok Power Station (NBPS), began operations in 1961 and reached a capacity of 237 megawatts by 1968. In the late 1970s, the South Bangkok Thermal Power Plant (SBTPP) began operations with a capacity of 200 megawatts. SBTPP’s capacity had increased to 1,300 megawatts by 1977.

In the 1970s, the increase in oil prices created interest in a lignite-fueled power plant, which was installed at Mae Mo, one of the leading lignite deposit sites in Thailand. The lignite-fueled plant was launched with an initial capacity of 825 megawatts in 1987. According to national estimates in 1985, it was determined that Thailand had 865 million tons of lignite deposits.

In 1987, the energy supply sector was run by three state-owned enterprises: EGAT, MEA, and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA). EGAT was administered under the Office of the Prime Minister, which was the national power distribution agency; MEA and PEA were run under the Ministry of the Interior, which had the responsibility for power distribution. Furthermore, there were many privately owned distribution franchises that bought power from PEA or EGAT. Cooperative efforts between state and private agencies in the production and distribution of power in Thailand led, in 1986, to more than 43,000 villages in the country gaining access to power.

After the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, the government of Thailand worked to privatize state-owned energy enterprises, although much of this effort prompted massive employee protests, thereby delaying the privatization initiatives.

Current and Future Plans

In recent decades, the demand for energy has shown a significant increase, along with Thailand’s growing economy. In 2022, the country’s total final consumption of energy was 128 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe). Although there have been efforts to shift to alternative energy sources, the country remains dependent on imported fuel, especially for its expanding manufacturing sector. Between 1999 and 2004, the country’s yearly growth in primary energy consumption was more than double the world’s average consumption of 2.9 percent. Starting in 2007–8, the contracting global economy resulted in a decline in Thailand’s exports, and the country’s expenditures on petroleum decreased from 15.4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004 to 10 percent in 2008.

In 2021, 43.7 percent of Thailand’s total energy supply came from oil. Another 26.4 percent came from natural gas, 16.6 percent from biofuels and waste, 12.4 percent from coal, and the rest from hydropower, wind, geothermal, and solar. The majority of energy was used by the nation’s industrial sector (32 percent), followed by the transportation sector (26 percent), residential (9 percent), and commercial and public services (2 percent).

Thailand has been promoting energy conservation and use of alternative energy sources. It was successful, for example, in increasing the share of renewable energy consumption to 5 percent by 2007. Furthermore, Thailand adopted the National Alternative Energy Development Plan (NAEDP) to develop and raise consumption of renewables by 20 percent by 2020; however, by 2021, the nation generated 17.5 percent of its power from renewables..

The Thai government originally planned to build the first of two nuclear energypower plants by 2020, although following the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear accident in March 2011, the plans were delayed and eventually scrapped. In the early 2020s, Thailand was considering building several small-scale nuclear reactors.

Bibliography

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Samai, J. “Vision and Perspectives for the Biofuel Sector From Thailand.” Proceedings of the World Alternative Energy Sciences Expo, Bangkok, Thailand, 2009.

"Thailand." CIA World Factbook, 7 Aug. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/thailand/. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.

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