On 2nd September 2013, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Embassy in Germany, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce (GTCC), organized the Workshop “Renewable Energy Community: Thai-German Cooperation on Sustainable Energy Development” at Narathip Auditorium in Bangkok. Mr. Chutintorn Gongsakdi, Director-General of International Economic Affairs Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand and Mr. Detlef Dauke, Director-General of Energy Policy Department, Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology of Germany, gave the opening remarks for the Workshop.

The main objective of the workshop was to share experiences on renewable energy development in Thailand and Germany, as well as discuss the potential of community-based renewable energy projects and explore the feasibility of creating fully renewable energy villages/regions in Thailand.

The Workshop underlined potential community-based renewable energy projects that could become integral to the development of the energy network of the future. The potential of decentralised development of renewable energy projects or fully renewable villages, municipalities or regions in the generation of new tax revenues in communities, creation of local jobs and improvement of the purchasing power in the region were also discussed. The local use of available resources could also help to increase income in the region and create new business opportunities. The workshop was expected to help stir public interest in participating more actively in community energy development.