Urbanisation and renewable energies in ASEAN: multi-disciplinary approaches to analysing past and future trends

By using multi-dimensional and comprehensive analyses, this thesis aims at providing harmonised targets, which not only follow the global trend of sustainable development but also serve the rapid economic and demographic growths in the developing countries. This thesis consists of four papers dealing with different challenges faced by Asian Emerging and Developing Countries (EMDCs) in the face of fast-approaching climate change and energy transition. The four papers can be divided into two main streams based on the research method applied. The first two essays employ decomposition and correlation methods to investigate long-term energy service demand and renewable energy developments. The last two essays turn to techno-socio-economic models with much attention to solar PV, a promising renewable energy type in most of Asian EMDCs.
The relationship between urbanisation and renewable energy are explored throughout all articles of the thesis. Paper 1 + 2 conclude that urbanisation causes energy consumption increases drastically in Southeast Asian countries, but at the same time creates momentum for renewable energy development, especially in urban areas. ... mehrSuggestions for combining urban and energy plans in policy design are provided to use urbanisation as a motivation for renewable energy development. Paper 3 estimates a techno-economic potential for rooftop PV and found evidence of a high-concentration of rooftop solar PV potentials in urban areas in Vietnam. Paper 4 conducts a socio-economic assessment to investigate Social Acceptance (SA) and Willingness To Pay (WTP) toward residential PV products in Vietnam.
The results show that PV can be considered as a lifestyle product with much greater attention and intention to purchase from the public in urban areas.
To assist policymakers in energy planning, Papers 1 + 2 provide decision support and innovative multilevel comparison tool, called the Impact Matrix. It is used for visualising factors comparison by placing considered factors in four quadrants of the matrix corresponding to four relative priority levels of policy focus requirements. The complex relationships between impact factors and energy demand and renewable energy changes can be explained by following the instruction in Paper 2.
Paper 3 develops a cost-effective, accessible, transferable and scalable method for cost-potential assessment of decentralised solar rooftop PV in developing countries where limited resource availability. Adjusting the module efficiency corresponding to regional and household conditions has been implemented to improve the output accuracy. The simulation for rooftop PV market is made
regarding different input assumptions and estimates of the effect of various policy designs, including changing the Feed-In Tariffs (FiTs), grid tariff, and technology development.
In order to explore future rooftop PV adoption, paper 4 conducts empirical research focusing on discovering the differences between Social Acceptance (SA) and Willingness To Pay (WTP). This paper contributes to the literature of customer behaviour toward renewable energy by providing extended moderated mediation models to differentiate the distinctive roles of each influencing variable of SA and WTP. Policy advice is given to translate environmental interest and PV knowledge to higher SA and adopting action.