Thailand has many types of and various technologies for wastewater management systems, depending on population density, wastewater amount, area and wastewater characteristics. Each system has differences in its operational process, energy use, and GHG emissions. The Energy Performance and Carbon Emissions Assessment and Monitoring Tool or ECAM programme contributes to Thailand’s Water Quality Management Plan and Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) Action Plan.

As part of the Thai-German Climate Programme – Waste (TGCP-Waste) project, the Pollution Control Department (PCD), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and GIZ organised an ECAM training (latest version) on 1-2 April 2021 at Amari Don Muang Airport Bangkok hotel. The first day was designed for practitioners making use of the programme e.g. Local Government Organisations (LGOs), while the second was for trainers to train and coach programme users e.g. Wastewater Management Authority (WMA), Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and representatives from the Regional Environmental Offices, since they provide advisory to LGOs in their areas with the PCD.

Mr. Somchai Songprakob, PCD’s Deputy Director, emphasised the benefits that LGOs and other relevant organisations will get from using the ECAM tool. “The programme eases the complexity of the calculation of energy use and GHG emissions. The data are crucial and will be useful for both the organisations at local and central levels to better handle domestic wastewater management.”

As an experienced user of the ECAM tool, Mr. Somporn Mueangthong , Sanitation Technical Officer (Professional Level), from Had Yai municipality listed gathering sufficient data required for the calculation as one of the main challenges, for example, activity data e.g. population with wastewater treatment facilities, monthly electricity usage, and amount of untreated wastewater. “Collecting data regularly and systematically will help reflect the wastewater management situation in the area more accurately, leading to the early solving of problems, reduction in operational costs and preventing negative impacts on the environment.”

At the end of the training, the organising team collected the feedback from the participants, and this will be used to adjust the programme to match the needs of Thai users as well as to jointly plan with relevant stakeholders the further use of the ECAM tool.