Effects of cross-border power trade between Laos and Thailand: Energy security and environmental implications

Mayurachat Watcharejyothin and Ram M. Shrestha

Energy Policy, 2009, vol. 37, issue 5, 1782-1792

Abstract: This paper analyzed the effects of hydropower development in Laos and power trade between Laos and Thailand on economy wide, energy resource mix, power generation capacity mix, energy system cost, environment, as well as, energy security. A MARKAL-based model for an integrated energy system of Laos and Thailand was developed to assess the effects of energy resource development and trade to meet the national energy demands of the two countries. Two national MARKAL-based energy system models of Laos and Thailand were formulated for the study. The results show that 80% exploitation of water resource in Laos would induce power trade between the countries. The integrated energy system cost is found to decrease marginally but it would mitigate the CO2 emission by 2% when compared with the base case. Thailand is expected to gain benefit from the increased level of power imported from Laos in terms of the lower energy system cost, better environmental quality and, greater diversification of energy sources. As compared to the base case, Laos would become the net energy exporter, earn significant export revenue, and improve the increase in revenue of energy export per increase in total energy system cost from the maximum exploitation of hydropower resource.

Keywords: Cross-border; energy; trade; Hydropower; resource; development; Integrated; energy; system; model; of; Laos; and; Thailand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00770-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:5:p:1782-1792

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().