USAID, CHULA PARTNER UP
>> The United States Agency for International Development and Chulalongkorn University launched an official partnership to accelerate renewable energy shares in the Lower Mekong subregion on Thursday.
Both parties signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at Chulalongkorn University headquarters.
The partnership, part of the USAID Clean Power Asia five-year programme aiming to scale up investment in grid-connected renewable energy in the Lower Mekong and throughout Asean, will focus on determining the impact of distributed solar energy pilot programmes to promote the use of renewable energy resources in the region.
“Given that Asia is home to more than half of the world’s population and continues to grow at a tremendous rate, energy demand is expected to increase dramatically in the next decade,” said Glyn T Davies, the US ambassador to Thailand, during the MoU signing. “Promoting a low-emission power sector is more critical now than ever.
“If we fail to harness the power of renewable resources, the region will continue to rely on conventional energy sources — like coal and large-scale hydropower — to meet the rising demand. We’ve already witnessed the negative impacts from conventional power sources: impacts on biodiversity, human health, food security, and livelihoods.”
He added that countries in the Lower Mekong region have abundant renewable energy sources, but only a fraction of the potential renewable power supply has been tapped.
The International Energy Agency’s Southeast Asia Energy Outlook of 2015 predicts that electricity demand will almost triple by 2040 with a shift towards coal, contrary to the trend seen in most other parts of the world. This means the Asean countries combined will be the world’s major carbon emitters.
The USAID Clean Power Asia programme assessed the growth of renewable energy, excluding large hydro figures, in Asean from 2006 and 2014, and found that Thailand had the largest growth in megawatts, around 5,500, of renewable energy capacity in the region.
In five years, the programme is expected to leverage US$750 million from public and private capital for rooftop PV, solar farms, wind farms, small hydro and biomass projects. It will generate 500 megawatts of renewable energy and reduce 3.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.