Schneider Electric building digital bridge for Thailand’s EV revolution
Electric vehicles are expected to make up more than half of Thailand’s domestic auto sales by 2030, under the country’s plan to become Southeast Asia’s EV hub.
The millions of electric vehicles due to hit Thai roads in the next few years will require not only more energy but also more intelligent management to ensure that electricity is used efficiently.
To serve that ambitious goal, Schneider Electric – a multinational digital transformation and energy management company – is building a smart electrification solution for Thailand's EV ecosystem.
Thailand has a very strong car industry and can be optimistic as starts on its EV journey, said Luc Rémont, Schneider Electric’s Executive Vice President, International Operations, in charge of South America, Africa and Middle East, India and East Asia & Pacific.
KResearch projects that by 2030, Thailand's EVs will account for 55 per cent of domestic vehicle sales, over 50 per cent of domestic manufacturing, and 47 per cent of total vehicle exports.
However, Rémont pointed out that Thai motorists will only switch to EVs if there is a large network of charging stations and a digital link with drivers.
It is this digital bridge between charging stations and drivers that Schneider Electric is busy building.
"We will provide options to our customers to use relevant charging infrastructure and ways of monitoring that infrastructure depending on the customer," Rémont explained.
Besides manufacturing charging devices and charging software platforms, Schneider is working closely with EV car manufacturers and battery manufacturers to provide infrastructure for their factories. The company is thus engaging in every part of Thailand’s EV journey, both upstream and downstream.
Schneider’s main focus in Thailand is efficient utilisation and sustainability of the Kingdom’s EV ecosystem.
"When you want to take resolute action for climate change, you need to tackle all the places where we ‘spend’ carbon," Rémont said.
But reducing and controlling carbon emissions depends on companies' ability to measure their energy use and use as much renewable energy as possible, he added.
"That's how we are working on building an industry, and this is moving quite fast.”
Schneider Electric is now ready to share the fruits of more than 10 years as an electrification and sustainability pioneer with customers, he said.
"When you bring technology and know-how together today, you can manage many things very differently from what we did in the past,” he added.
Schneider, with global revenue €29 billion in 2021, has shown its commitment to sustainability by aiming to be carbon neutral by 2025 and net-zero by 2030. That is significantly earlier than most countries’ 2050 and 2065 targets for carbon neutrality and net zero under the Paris Accord, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5C by the end of the century.
Schneider is also encouraging and supporting over 1,000 suppliers around the world to follow its own lead.
Rémont added that his company was named the world's most sustainable corporation in Corporate Knights’ 2021 ranking and as a Leader in the Independent Research Firm Report: Green Quadrant: IoT Platforms for Smart Buildings 2022
"Sustainability is an objective for mankind with big challenges, starting with climate change, which affects each and every country, each and every individual. And we believe that Schneider should lead the driving agenda for corporates, for governments, and for individuals."
He said however that sustainability was not just a challenge or a constraint. It is also an opportunity for Schneider to improve electrification efficiency.
