All show and no substance. Typical!

[thequietman]

Lights on, lights off. Power on, off, little bit, devices humming because not enough. Contents of fridge freezers ruined, internet shops unable to make a profit. Shops having to close early due to another power outage.  Again and again and again and again ............ <deleted> !

 

Submarines? check. Tanks? check. Jets? check. aircraft carriers? check. Blimps? check. 

 

A power grid that can stay on?  sorry, no hab. 

 

Apologies,,,,,, rant over. I'm living here coming up to 15 years and it's been the same since I got here.

[ubonjoe]

Where are you living?

No such problems like that here in Ubon. An occasional power blip once in awhile and rarely a short outage.

[Pilotman]

Not too much of an issue in Sattahip.  Power has been off a couple of times for max 2 hours.  Internet off just now as the mast got a direct hi, which is hardly the governments fault.  TV fully functional and water not a problem.  Fingers crossed,  as you have many more years experience than I .  Still at least its not boring, which is why I moved here in the first place. I  can't stand d predictability . 

[jeab1980]

We get 6 to 8 power outs a week usualy seconds but if raining we can forget getting it back on for a few hours. Got so used to it now its part of daily life. I have emergency back up in place if its going to be a long one during the day. (Just 2 gennies to run a few things to keep shop ticking over and freezer/ fridges.) I realy doesn't bother me that much to tell the truth. 

[pgrahmm]

Seldom have any brown or black outs in the Hang Dong/CM area....

Power dropped for a few moments during the big storms....

The longest approaching an hour....

[thequietman]

2 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

Where are you living?

No such problems like that here in Ubon. An occasional power blip once in awhile and rarely a short outage.

Phrae-Uttaradit area. It's an ongoing thing for 14 years now. It has been explained to us that they need new transformers but no hab money. For 14 years, no hab money. 

[keeniau96]

Here in Phuket now 14+ years, conditions pretty much the same as the OP. Thinking of buying a backup generator.

[Tagaa]

I bought  a UPS for my PC & router and installed it on Mayy11, 2017. It has a program that shows status, time on the battery, whatever. It also has surge protection

        
Since May 11 it has recorded 148 outages. Four of those were 12 hours plus. I'm guessing 6 to 8 have been 2 to 4 hours. The rest, lets say 136 of them, were the 2 to 10 second variety. We have had as many as 5 short term outages in one day.Hence the reason for the UPS purchase.

It also indicates it has kicked in on 37 undervoltage situations. We'll call those brown outs.

 

The only solutions are solar with  battery back up (not cost effective) or an instant on generator. I haven't seen one of those offered by any company that provides back up solutions.

 

I agree it's a real problem for us fuuriners, but Thais don't seem to care. I use AC just about all day everyday, have a large refrigerator and a chest freezer, large HD TV, PC and internet router, not to mention 10+ ceiling fans & lights. Most of the indigenous population close to me has a light, a black & white 19" TV and a small frig, used mostly for cooling water. Naturally, a power outage is a problem for me, but barely an inconvenience for them. This is why it will never be solved.

 

[Tagaa]

The Thai electric grid must have known I was complaining...actually, not complaining, just citing facts.

 

The power is out & has been out over 15 minutes now. That means it will be 2 to 4 hours before it is restored.

 

I'll power off my PC as the battery only lasts 45 minutes or so.

 

TIT

[JaiLai]

Totally agree, it's pathetic in this day and age.

 

My True vision signal flickers at the slightest sign of a bit of wind, very annoying.

 

Those that mention a b/u gennie, any models you'd recommend and what appliances can it run?

 

Thanks.

[kwonitoy]

I had this set up on my farm out in the middle of no where, I loved it.

Now I live in Udon Thani for my son's school and the power goes out all the time, I miss my genset.

Not cheap but automatic start and stop through the gray panel controller 

Longest stretch it ran for was 3 days, after a typhoon

11 KW

[stevenl]

On 03/10/2017 at 11:38 AM, keeniau96 said:

Here in Phuket now 14+ years, conditions pretty much the same as the OP. Thinking of buying a backup generator.

And here on Phuket, Rawai and Kata, no issues.

[NancyL]

3 hours ago, kwonitoy said:

I had this set up on my farm out in the middle of no where, I loved it.

Now I live in Udon Thani for my son's school and the power goes out all the time, I miss my genset.

Not cheap but automatic start and stop through the gray panel controller 

Longest stretch it ran for was 3 days, after a typhoon

11 KW

This is basically the set-up we had for our greenhouse/nursery operation in Michigan -- in Wayne county, Michigan, the highest population county in the state.  When we had power outages, they'd last for days, because our township was the most remote and rural.  However, our generators weren't big enough to handle every circuit and we "planned" on losing power in the winter and wired the genset accordingly.  However, most of the multi-day power outages occurred in the summer after big windstorms knocked down the region's ash trees, then dying from the imported emerald ash borer.  The ash trees took down so many power lines that it took days to restore power.  

 

In retrospect, we realized we could survive winter outages with our woodburning stove and propane heaters for the greenhouses, but the summer outages were worse because that's when we were propagating to root new plants and needed to mist woody cuttings every few minutes.  We had failed to put the electrical circuits for the propagation controllers onto the genset -- at least initially.  And we also lost water pressure during some of the summer power outages.  

 

By comparison, our "electrical life" is good here in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  But, we live in a condo without any plants in our unit.

[Tagaa]

Kwonitoy...Sent you a PM.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

Put up with it for 15 years and hasn't bought a generator .

 

If the OP has a generator, but is complaining on behalf of the locals- it's their problem for electing officials that won't fix anything.

 

BTW never had an outage more than 30 minutes in Lamphun, and not a problem except unusually ( and solved within a couple of hours ) elsewhere.

[blackcab]

After 15 years you must have realised that sometimes you have to help yourself. We all know this is a developing country, so a little bit of planning and expenditure could probably have resolved your situation.

[bluesofa]

Being bored (or is that a boring person?) I keep track of the power outages in Udon.

In the past 4 years, we have had 44 power outages, ranging from 5 minutes to 11 hours.

 

Living out of the the town centre, you find everyone sits around wondering when the power's coming back, but no-one ever informs the PEA about it.

 

I know it won't stop the power outages, but I always make a point of calling the PEA call centre after thirty minutes.

Often they're not aware of anything if it's only one village.

Sometimes I call, they put me on hold for a minute while they check with Udon, and inform me of the situation.

 

I can recommend them as they pass the details on from the BKK call centre outwards, it definitely does not get ignored, unlike calling Udon directly, who do nothing (for days sometimes).

 

Call them on 1129. Have an electric bill handy the very first time only, to give them your reference number. After that, as long as you call using the same phone number, they will ask if they're talk to John Smith, and do you live at 123/45 Main road, etc.

Can't praise them enough for their help and making sure the fault is reported and dealt with.

 

[wildewillie89]

On 11/10/2017 at 12:16 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

If the OP has a generator, but is complaining on behalf of the locals- it's their problem for electing officials that won't fix anything

We 'should' all know the government put large percentages of their budget into certain regions of the country. We also should definitely all know that elections that look favourable to help those other areas are usually disrupted. 

 

In terms of local officials, they have no control re electricity as the provider is half government/private. For example, most Mayors in my province have made their complaints to the Governor re power cuts, who the provider just ignores completely.

 

So I am confused as to what you mean?