Int. J. Renew. Energy Dev. 2023, 12 (4), 655-665 |655 https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.2023.53211 ISSN: 2252-4940/© 2023.The Author(s). Published by CBIORE Contents list available at IJRED website International Journal of Renewable Energy Development Journal homepage: https://ijred.undip.ac.id Energy demand modeling for low carbon cities in Thailand: A case study of Nakhon Ratchasima province Atit Tippichai a* , Kattreeya Teungchai b , Atsushi Fukuda c a Department of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture, Art and Design, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand b Master of Urban and Regional Planning Program in Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture, Art and Design, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand c Department of Transportation Systems Engineering, College of Science and Technology, Nihon University, Chiba, Japan Abstract. Nakhon Ratchasima is one of the northeastern cities which has been promoted as one of the low-carbon cities in Thailand. The study aims to evaluate policies and measures on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation to meet the target at the provincial level. The Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) is used as a modeling tool to simulate energy demand for each economic sector. The 2019 data is set as a base year, using top-down and bottom-up approaches depending on the availability of data for the analysis. The model consists of two scenarios: (1) Business-as-usual (BAU) scenario and Low carbon scenario (LCS). Transport and industry sectors are the most energy-consuming and CO2-emitting sectors in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. In the LCS case, the final energy demand and CO2 emissions in 2050 will be reduced by about 40% compared to the BAU case. In addition, CO2 emissions in Nakhon Ratchasima Province will peak around 2038, this is not the case with BAU. The study could predict future energy demand and propose a way forward to reducing GHG emissions at the provincial level. Keywords: Energy demand modeling, Energy policy, Provincial energy modeling, Climate change, CO2 emissions, LEAP, Low carbon city @ The author(s). Published by CBIORE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Received: 23 rd March 2023; Revised: 4 th May 2023; Accepted: 20 th May 2023; Available online: 26 th May 2023 1. Introduction Climate change is a most recognized global issue which needs all nations to address it together right away. Based on scientific studies by IPCC (2021), the total human-caused global surface temperature increased from 1850-1900 to 2010-2019 by about 1.07C. This is approaching the range of 1.5-2.0C rise which the Paris Agreement aims to limit (UNFCCC 2015). Energy consumption is the biggest source of global anthropogenic GHG emissions, responsible for 76% of worldwide. The energy sector includes transportation, electricity and heat generation, buildings, manufacturing and construction, fugitive emissions, and other fuel combustion (Ge et al. 2020). According to UN- Habitat, cities consume about 78% of the world's energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions (United Nations 2022). Moreover, by 2050 more than two-thirds of the world population is projected to live in urban areas (Ritchie and Roser 2018). To achieve national and international goals in reducing GHG emissions, all local communities or cities are really needed to take their own action against climate change. Nakhon Ratchasima is one of the four cities in Thailand which are selected to set a low-carbon city target (UNDP/GEF and TGO 2020). Nakhon Ratchasima Province is in the northeastern part of Thailand and is the biggest province in terms of area and the second province in terms of population. With the location advantage as an important trade gateway to Indochina countries and in line with the East-West Economic * Corresponding author Email: atit.ti@kmitl.ac.th (A.Tippichai) Corridor (EEC), the role of Nakhon Ratchasima Province in the future will be more significant to Thailand's development strategy. This would cause a huge demand for energy in the future. This will be the cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and local air pollution as well. There are many attempts to tackle this issue, and the target of being a low- carbon city has been set for Nakhon Ratchasima city. Furthermore, Nakhon Ratchasima Province aims to be a smart city focusing on smart mobility as a high-speed rail system has been constructed and a light rail transit (LRT) system has been studied (OTP 2017). According to the aforementioned rationales, Nakhon Ratchasima Province is selected in this study to assess policies and measures for greenhouse gas emissions reductions to meet the target of a low-carbon city. To evaluate proper GHG emissions reduction measures and policies in Nakhon Ratchasima Province, it is necessary to develop a provincial-level energy demand model. Many studies adopted various energy demand modeling tools to forecast energy demand in the future according to developed scenarios, for example, Chunark et al. (2015), Klungboonkrong et al. (2017), Fungtammasan et al. (2017), Wangjiraniran et al. (2017), Emodi et al. (2017), Chaichaloempreecha et al. (2019), Hooman (2019), Hu et al. (2019), Misila et al. (2020), Lunsamrong and Tippichai (2022), and Pongthanaisawan et al. (2023). In this study, the Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) is employed to forecast energy demand in each economic sector of Nakhon Ratchasima Research Article