Analyzing the Impact of Climate Change on Future Electricity Demand in Thailand

The rise in temperatures induced by climate change may have important implications for Thailand's electricity demand. This paper investigates how changing climate will affect Thailand's daily, seasonal, and long-term electricity demand. Regression models are applied to capture daily load patterns across each month in the year. Temperature projections from the UK Hadley Centre climate model are then used to assess hourly sensitivity to changes in mean temperatures and diurnal temperature range. These are combined with four representative socioeconomic scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emission Scenarios to project absolute changes in Thailand's electricity demand. The specific climate and socioeconomic scenarios considered here indicate that mean annual temperatures in Thailand will rise by 1.74 to 3.43$^{\circ}{\rm C}$ by 2080, implying increases in Thai peak electricity demand of 1.5%–3.1% in the 2020s, 3.7%–8.3% in the 2050s, and 6.6%–15.3% in the 2080s.