Mr Komol Buaket (centre)

The Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency (DEDE) is monitoring energy consumption of large buildings more closely, particularly newly constructed ones, to ensure they comply with the efficient power consumption standards due to be regulated soon.

Komol Buaket, DEDE director of energy regulation and conservation bureau, said the building energy code (BEC) for large structures is scheduled to be implemented in the second quarter of next year.

The department defines large buildings as those with total usage areas of more than 10,000 square metres; buildings with a power meter capacity of more than 1,175 kilovolt-amperes (DVA); and buildings that consume more than 20 million megajoules a year.

The BEC is an international power consumption standard that has been adopted by Thailand since 2013. It prescribes the amount of power that should be used in buildings as well as approaches that help reduce heat, such as having plants in green areas, to reduce temperature and power consumption.

For old buildings, the owners or property management firms must report their annual energy consumption reports to the energy auditor every year to ensure that the new BEC rules are fair to owners of both old and new buildings, Mr Kamol said.

He said the DEDE has trained more than 170,000 energy auditors for the BEC since 2007.

Praphon Wongtharua, DEDE director-general, said he expects the BEC to cover about 100 new large buildings. Each building is expected to consume more than 6 million kilowatt hour a year, which the BEC would be expected to cut by 10%.

The BEC was first implemented in 2013, starting from buildings of state agencies, and has helped reduced energy consumption substantially.

Meanwhile, the DEDE has allocated a 4.3-billion-baht budget from the Energy Conservation Fund to support energy-saving measures and increase efficient energy consumption in buildings and factories to 2019.

Some 3.5 billion baht of the total budget will be provided through 11 commercial banks for working capital under a soft loan programme, while another 800 million would be set aside as a part project finance and part subsidy of energy-saving equipment in buildings.