The EC-ASEAN COGEN Programme is an economic co-operation initiatiated by the European Commission and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
COGEN 3 is the third phase and the objective is to promote and create business opportunities for the use of co-generation to generate power and heat using biomass, coal or gas as fuel.

Throughout the programme substantial work was made to increase awareness in ASEAN regarding cogeneration.

Something needs to be done as long as we worldwide only convert 33% of the fuel energy content to electricity.

Thailand have slightly higher efficiencies compared to the world wide average – however still 60% of the energy content used for central electricity generation is wasted directly in conversion at the plants – when T&D losses are included 63% of the fuel energy content are wasted in the present electricity system in Thailand. Only 37% of the fuel energy content is reaching the end user as useful electricity. With an oil price at USD/barrel 40 the energy losses from central power stations of 150,000 GWh in Thailand represent an annual energy waste of more than USD 1100 million. And Thailand is in fact one of the best examples in the region with approximately 2200 MW installed capacity (8.0% of total installed capacity) generating 11.5% of Thailand’s electricity.

Can it be done better with cogeneration.- YES

Energy savings using cogeneration compared with separate generation - in this example 44% more energy is used with separate generation.

And ASEAN (or other countries) will get a number of other benefits. The benefits of cogeneration are saving primary energy, avoided T&D investment, avoiding network losses, security of energy supply, reducing emissions (CDM potential) and to increase the competitive situation of industries. Also the EVA (Economic Value Added) especially in rural areas, where job creation could be one of the main drivers for cogeneration support.

The ASEAN lesson from Europe and worldwide is that cogeneration can achieve significant savings in energy & T&D investment. The most promising cogeneration applications for ASEAN are the "normal" industrial application (basically the same options worldwide) and the absorption cooling application - directly onsite or combined with district cooling networks. The cogeneration cooling applications in ASEAN has the potential to beat the district heating applications worldwide with a cooling season of 12 month a year in most of the ASEAN countries - compared with a 5-8 month heating season in European countries. In some ASEAN countries today more than 50% of the electricity is used for compressor cooling and some commercial buildings use more than 70% of the electricity for cooling!

Surveys have shown that in the Asia-Pacific region, only 20% of the total energy demand in the industrial sector are in the form of electricity, while the remaining are in the form of thermal energy, and that 60% of the energy requirements of office and commercial complexes are for comfort cooling.

Is it more expensive? - NO - T&D investments should be included in the calculations.  
WADE (World Alliance for Decentralised Energy) created an innovative new economic model that is able to demonstrate, the economic and environmental benefits that DE have in relation to conventional central power.

The results of the ‘run' of the model for the worldwide global electricity system, undertaken by WADE in late 2003, shows advantages for all the four parameters:

• retail electricity costs
• capital costs
• carbon dioxide emissions
• fossil fuel consumption

More than 3.5 USc can be saved if the US installed all the new required capacity until 2020 with cogeneration and other distributed technologies.

US WADE model calculations – electricity retail cost with development in 100% new central (6.12%) up to 100% new DE and cogeneration (39.39%).

The cogeneration seminars, conferences and study tours organised by COGEN 3 attracted around 3,000 participants from most countries from EU and ASEAN.   

Just to highlight some of the performance indicator mentioned in our final report:

· We have performed 35 workshops, seminars and study tours with 2762 participants
· Performed 5 study tours to Europe and ASEAN for energy policy makers from seven ASEAN countries.
· Performed 7 cogen weeks/days in 2003, 9 in 2004
· Performed 17 training courses
· Number of trained people: 493
· 61 feasibility/techno-economic studies for different cogeneration projects
· having 200 identified cogeneration projects in our project list
· Developed a cogeneration guide
· Developed software tools for technical and financial evaluation of cogeneration
· Engaged 7 Country Co-ordinators - in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand
· Prepared the call for proposals for the FSDP (Full Scale Demonstration Projects) scheme announced in November 2002, attracted 31 applications. Approval for 24 FSDP was obtained from the EC in Brussels in May 2003. During 2004, 13 FSDP contracts were signed - 8 projects will finally get the grant - the remaining have stopped the project development or changed to non EU supplier.
· Prepared 7 national energy reviews
· Prepared 7 national cogeneration policy recommendations

Did we achieve our goals?? Yes, we have achieved all the goals.

What is going to happen after December 2004, where the project terminates? Files will be saved and reports stored at AIT - and send to EC delegation in Bangkok.