Evaluating the effects of the socio-economic, environmental, and institutional factors on sustainable renewable energy policy development in Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that challenged the renewable energy sector in Thailand. The literature reports that there were institutional bottlenecks in the renewable energy sector that included bureaucratic corruption, red tape, undefined queuing periods, and other factors that have placed a huge burden on the sustainability of the country’s renewable energy policy measures. The objectives of this study were fourfold: to investigate the context of sustainable renewable policy development from the Thai perspective, and the socio-economic, environmental, and institutional factors that influence sustainable renewable energy policy development in the Thai context.

The study used a mixed-methods design, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques as well as the use of secondary data from year 2007-2016. The samples included managers, engineers, senior government officers, and chief executive officers in ten power-producing companies in Bangkok and Ayutthaya provinces. Most of the participants and respondents were native Thais with the minimum age being twenty-four, and the maximum age being sixty years. Twenty-three participants were selected for the qualitative interviews, with four females, and nineteen males. The quantitative survey randomly selected four-hundred respondents from ten organizations. The study then developed hypotheses to test the direct effects of developing sustainable renewable energy policy using multiple regression analytic tools.

The analysis of the qualitative interview results showed that the policy measures, from the adder policies, the feed-in-tariff policies, up until the bidding policies, were challenged with corrupt practices, lack of stakeholders’ consultation, high costs of investments, political interferences, unclear policy goals, and high profit sharing between local government partners and private investors. The survey data results indicated that the social and institutional factors have a strong and significant causal effect on the development of sustainable renewable energy policies. On the other hand, the results of the secondary data using a ten years baseline data from year 2007 until 2016, suggested no significant effect of the environment and economic indicators on the dependent variable: sustainable renewable energy policy development. The study concluded that the institutional factors played a significant role in sustainable renewable energy policy development, and recommended good governance as the key ingredient in enabling the government to achieve the forty percent renewable energy target by 2036.