Advance Energy Plus targets Kyoto opening
CDM consultancy aims for growth
Advance Energy Plus targets Kyoto opening
WALAILAK KEERATIPIPATPONG
Despite its profitability and high potential, consultancy for Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon-credit trading projects in Thailand is a field with low competition and few players. However, Advance Energy Plus, which claims to be the only Thai firm providing integrated CDM services, says the sector is in such an early stage that success is by no means a walk in the park.
CDM is a mechanism, set up under the Kyoto Protocol, to help industrialised countries reach their greenhouse gas reduction targets by investing in clean technology in developing countries in exchange for carbon credits.
Anat Prapasawad, Advance Energy Plus’s managing director, said that the CDM sector in Thailand was still young, having been around for less than five years, which makes it difficult to propose the service to companies and manufacturers.
The challenges, he said, include dealing with third parties _ in particular, convincing state agencies of the value of CDM projects _ as well as adjusting to frequent criteria changes by the UN body responsible for qualifying projects.
”The approval for CDM projects in Thailand still takes time that does not match with quick changes. Moreover, the slowness will greatly affect trade in this new commodity, carbon credits,” he said.
A biogas collection site at a Charoen Pokphand Foods farm in Kanchanaburi is one of the client CDM projects of Advance Energy Plus.
As a CDM consultant and developer, Advance Energy Plus helps Thai manufacturers design projects from the start, searches the markets to sell carbon credits, and takes buyers such as foreign banks to meet Thai customers.
The company’s clients include South Pole Carbon Asset Management of Switzerland, Danish Energy Management, Sumitomo Corporation, the Development Bank of Japan, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, Charoen Pokphand Foods and the World Bank.
Mr Anat claims Advance Energy Plus can assure these clients of its capability to run a CDM service thanks to its banking background and its staff’s experience in engineering and energy fields.
At present, Advance Energy Plus controls about 40% of the more than 40 CDM projects approved by the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation.
The organisation expects its number of approved projects to hit 100 by the end of the year and Mr Anat said the increase would further expand his company’s portfolio.
In Mr Anat’s view, Thailand’s potential CDM market is enormous and still has plenty of room for consultants _ especially in the food, starch, palm oil and livestock industries.
Thailand’s livestock industry is among the biggest polluters, releasing over 155 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually from over 275 million poultry, 10 million pigs and 9.9 million cattle raised each year.
Responding to this huge emission, the Livestock Development Department, with the support of the World Bank, has launched a programme for 10 pig farmers to turn waste water into biomass and to earn additional income from claiming carbon credits.
The World Bank, one of the main players in carbon trading, has recently selected Advance Energy Plus to provide CDM services for these farms.
From 2009 to 2014, farms in Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi and Chon Buri will take part in a five-year programme with a 247-million-baht budget, of which 128 million baht is provided by the World Bank Office in Bangkok and the rest by the Energy Conservation Fund.
The scheme should cut 58,000 tonnes of gas emissions per year and earn participating farms about 128 million baht during the programme.
Mr Anat added that the project lets carbon credits be sold for small manufacturers in a bundle format that unites emissions for trading.
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Tags: Advance Energy, Bank Of Japan, Carbon Credit Trading, Carbon Credits, Cdm Projects, Charoen Pokphand Foods, Clean Development Mechanism, Clean Technology, Danish Energy, Design Projects, Electricity Generating Authority, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, Foreign Banks, Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Industrialised Countries, Kanchanaburi, Kyoto Protocol, Reduction Targets, Sumitomo Corporation, Thai Manufacturers