Regulatory Round-up: Thailand’s green taxonomy, EU’s new rules on renewable energy permits

Thailand‘s proposed sustainable finance taxonomy has adopted a traffic light system to categorise activities which excludes new natural gas plants from its green classification, according to a draft document released by the Bank of Thailand (translated in English from page 6 of the document). The taxonomy will consider green only natural gas plants that are converted to use green hydrogen where emission intensity is capped at 100gCO2e/kWh throughout the plant’s life cycle. Natural gas accounted for 59 per cent of Thailand’s power mix in 2020.

The European Council has formally adopted rules aimed at creating speedier permit processes for renewable energy projects. On December 19 2022, EU energy ministers added a provision to regulations agreed in the Energy Council in November to accelerate and simplify the introduction of grids. The new rules will apply for 18 months.