What can the Philippines learn from Thailand`s ENCON Fund in overcoming the barriers to developing renewable energy resources

Abstract

Energy security and climate strategy are the twin goals behind the aggressive promotion of the Philippines and Thailand for developing renewable energy (RE) resources. Investment in the RE sector in the Philippines, however, has been weigh down by barriers including: (i) the difficulty in accessing finance; (ii) tedious administrative procedures; and (iii) the lack of local acceptance, as identified from documentary reviews and in the survey interview done in the Philippines in 2016. The author explores in this paper the design and the mechanism of the Energy Conservation (ENCON) Fund, a well-acclaimed innovative financing scheme which is said to be a key that makes Thailand an investment hub for clean energy investment, from which the Philippines can learn from to similarly address these barriers to its own RE goals.