Emergency Plan Ready For Thailand's April Power Crisis

[webfact]

Emergency plan ready for April power crisis
By English News



BANGKOK, Feb 26 – Thailand's Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) has mapped out an eight-step contingency plan to cope with possible power outage during routine maintenance of a critical natural gas platform in Myanmar April 5-14, according to a senior official.

MEA Governor Arthorn Sinsawad said the plan will, among other things, call on the public and private sectors to reduce power use by 10 per cent, especially at peak hours from 2-5 pm.

He did not elaborate on details of the eight steps but assured that some power blackout could be inevitable, but could be alleviated in all areas if people give their full cooperation.

A worst-case scenario is disruption at an Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) power plant which will force EGAT to scale down its power supply to MEA, he said.

If that happens, MEA will suspend power distribution to Bangkok’s suburbs at one-hour intervals for each zone, he said, reassuring that the capital’s inner economic areas, industrial estates, stock market and hospitals will not be affected.

At Siriraj Hospital and the stock market, for example, power generators will be available in case of emergency, he said.

The Metropolitan Water Works Authority will meet with related agencies tomorrow to work out measures to ensure uninterrupted water supply to people during the period.

Verapong Chaiperm, governor of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, said he has invited an EGAT deputy governor to discuss preparations for the power crisis today.

About 200 representatives of industrial estates and government agencies will join the meeting to get a clear picture of the energy situation on April 5-14 when the Yanada gas platform in Myanmar – one of the electricity suppliers to Thailand – will be fixed.

The private sector needs to clearly understand the situation before deciding if they will suspend their operations during the energy crisis, he said. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2013-02-26

[LuckyLew]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

[ChrisY1]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

You mean they had a water management plan??

[Pimay1]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

You mean they had a water management plan??

Yeah the 1,000 boats and the Korean pumps that never arrived.

[scorecard]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

On the same point, hope they publish a plan in the near futyre so that the various regions / provinces are well informed about the possibility of blackouts, etc.

[MaxLee]

A plan?

"Dear people of Thailand, we don't know nothing, we can't do nothing, so please save energy and suffer 40 celsius plus peak hours for 2 months every day including Songkran, for our sake, we'll let the ministries deal with it, and if the crisis is over, thank you for bearing with us. We'll pay you compensation. Bye, bye..."

[joepattaya1961]

Only Hannibal has a plan.......and Murdock will follow!

[Pimay1]

He did not elaborate on details of the eight steps but assured that some power blackout could be inevitable, but could be alleviated in all areas if people give their full cooperation.

How in the hell can people give their full cooperation if they don't know what the plan is to cooperate with. I am beginning to believe this is all hype just to make these clowns look good when nothing happens.

Edited February 26, 2013 by Pimay1

[MaxLee]

He did not elaborate on details of the eight steps but assured that some power blackout could be inevitable, but could be alleviated in all areas if people give their full cooperation.

How in the hell can people give their full cooperation if they don't know what the plan is to cooperate with. I am beginning to believe this is all hype just to make these clowns look good when nothing happens.

Well that's the point you never know what happens because it's amazing Thailand

[h90]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

I have the feeling there are similarities between the water management plan and the electric management plan.

[Ricardo]

Hands Up, everyone who suspects that the plan consists of issuing vain pleas for restraint by power-consumers, and issuing denials of any real problem, until May when gas-supplies resume and the cooling monsoon-rainclouds arrive ?

[wayned]

Day late and a dollar short! Hand fans and candles are in order! But be assured , the "haves" will have and the "have nots" won't!

[bigbamboo]

The peak hours are between 2pm and 5pm in Thailand?

I thought that was when everyone switches off.

[beano2274]

sorry but people will only do something about it when they notice they have no power for an hour everyday.

Should have started learning to save electricity months ago.

Get all businesses to turn their lights off, any businesses found with lights on after a certain time of night gets fined heavily, this includes parliament and government offices (if a government office then the Minister gets fined).

Edited February 26, 2013 by beano2274

[slapout]

I guess the 8 point plan is another one of those whose, name/details cannot be devulged. One government group says factories could be shut down and this one says industrial parks will not be affected. Where is EGAT is all of this time of planning/posturing?

The drivers of vehicles, involved in accidents, flee the scene, as they are just following the examples set by the leaders of this countries government/industry. The next step is to declare an emergency and aloot an emergency wheelbarrow full of money to be dispersed to handle the problem.

It just might be that we are seeing the full/true affect of inbreeding to large groups of humans. This has resulted in demineshed brain and lung size, thus drasticly restricting common sense node and oxygen supply to the brain

[CelticBhoy]

Would have made sense to do this "routine maintenance" in January, no? Bit cooller then.

[MaxYakov]

They (that would be the 1000-boat folks, no doubt) are working on a motorbike version because there doesn't seem to be enough bicycles in Thailand for this to be practical.

Edited February 26, 2013 by MaxYakov

[MaxLee]

Would have made sense to do this "routine maintenance" in January, no? Bit cooller then.

South east Asia is a developing nation. Most nations there don't know anything about PLANNING...

[Nickymaster]

First you create a crisis in order to scare people. According to the previous Energy Minister the info was available from last December and the situation can be easily managed. Instead, the current government withheld the info and created a last minute scare.

Now they also have a solution: Use less energy and start making energy deals (Thaksin and Hun Sen must be counting their future wealth).

It's all politics people. You are being fooled because a few have a different agenda.

[witsawakorn]

I don't think there will be any black outs. EGAT manages to carry out maintenance on its power plants without causing black outs. Many of the gas fired power plant can run on diesel anyway. The reduction in gas supply only affects power plant on the west side of Thailand. Plants located in Eastern Thailand are supplied from the Gulf of Thailand and wont be affected. I get the feeling that the MEA governor is just trying to show off how clever he thinks he is

Edited February 26, 2013 by witsawakorn

[Naam]

Would have made sense to do this "routine maintenance" in January, no? Bit cooller then.

the maintenance is done by Myanmar on Myanmar gas fields. why don't you offer yourself as adviser and tell these backward people when exactly any maintenance should be done?

[Chao Lao Beach]

One could say that these great planers should have thought about this 7 months ago when they were aware of this issue.

[OzMick]

They (that would be the 1000-boat folks, no doubt) are working on a motorbike version because there doesn't seem to be enough bicycles in Thailand for this to be practical.

bicycle_generator.jpeg

The company where i worked had a bicycle generator set up similar to that in their PR room. 1 kW is achievable on a short burst, but you would have to be very fit to sustain it for any time.

BTW you could save some effort if your system had an inverter and rectifier removed and you used a car charger to charge directly from the battery.

Edited February 26, 2013 by OzMick

[how241]

I hope it works better than the water management plan

+1

[tomross46]

Hands Up, everyone who suspects that the plan consists of issuing vain pleas for restraint by power-consumers, and issuing denials of any real problem, until May when gas-supplies resume and the cooling monsoon-rainclouds arrive ?

Shut down the parliment, save money, all that comes from there is HOT AIR.

[tomross46]

One could say that these great planers should have thought about this 7 months ago when they were aware of this issue.

Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[OzMick]

Is importing LNG more expensive than using diesel and bunker oil as an alternative? If not, why is there no announcement about the EXTRA gas tankers booked to alleviate the shortfall? Was 7 months not enough time to organise shipments, or did somebody put this in the "too hard" tray until it was too late?

[KHR1010]

No doubt the 8 step plan is nothing more than an 8 step flow-chart which will guide the officials through the finger pointing process. from the top level official down to the fall-guy that will be sacked over the upcoming incompetence.

[MaxYakov]

They (that would be the 1000-boat folks, no doubt) are working on a motorbike version because there doesn't seem to be enough bicycles in Thailand for this to be practical.

bicycle_generator.jpeg

The company where i worked had a bicycle generator set up similar to that in their PR room. 1 kW is achievable on a short burst, but you would have to be very fit to sustain it for any time.

BTW you could save some effort if your system had an inverter and rectifier removed and you used a car charger to charge directly from the battery.

What did use it for? Primarily exercise? Or was it a 'developing nation' version of a SUPS (Sort-of Un-interruptible Power Supply)?

Speaking of UPS, get yours now if you're not running a laptop or have an A/C external drive. Mine has saved my drive a few times with the flakey power where I am. The short-duration outages were probably the result of a sloppy shift-change on the bicycle.

One could spin an alternator, but it would have to be without variation or there would be frequency and voltage fluctuations. Even a car alternator simply charges the battery which provides a stable 12 VDC (when the engine is not being started). Come to think of it, the generator in the drawing should be (or is) an alternator for practical reasons and it should be powering a 12 VDC charger rather than just being rectified with a diode.

I have a Yamaha ES 1000, a 1KW gas-powered A/C generator and it uses a sophisticated rotating component, but still has a regulated inverter for output to compensate of load-induced engine speed variations.

Edited February 26, 2013 by MaxYakov

[RJJ]

About 200 representatives of industrial estates and government agencies will join the meeting to get a clear picture of the energy situation on April 5-14...

It takes about 200 people to get the details?

How many Thais does it take to change a light bulb? Oh that is so relevant this time...