Detection and introduction of emerging technologies for green buildings in Thailand

Energy efficiency in Thailand remains low despite the escalating energy consumption. Moreover, Thailand's energy security situation is risky and unsustainable due to its large proportion of energy import and heavy dependency on natural gas for electricity generation. In this paper, a comprehensive citation‐based approach employing academic and patent data are utilised in order to detect the emerging technologies for green buildings in tropical countries like Thailand. Rapidly growing and overlapping areas of paper and patent clusters have been identified as emerging technologies. As a result, the clusters related to solar cooling have been identified as a promising technology that satisfies the two conditions. Solar cooling possesses great potential since it closely fits the environment in Thailand where there is abundant sunlight all year round and air conditioning consumes roughly half of the total electrical usage.