Brownouts Looming?

[dddave]

Recently I was chatting online with a friend who lives in Cebu, the Philippines. He was saying the main source of discontent among ex-pats there these days are the sometimes twice daily "brownouts", often lasting three and four hours at a time. No AC, , no internet, no TV. The hot item for an expat to have is a home generating unit, not unusual to see five or six APU's sitting in the living room. The Philippines grid and generating capacity is poor to start with and apparently the low water at hydro dams is making it much worse.

This got me to wondering how much of Thailand's electrical supply is hydro? With the ongoing drought and no major rains yet this season, water levels must be getting pretty low and hydro generating capacity greatly reduced. Is this an upcoming issue or does Thailand have enough coal, oil and nuclear (?) generating capability to overcome any major hydro shortage?

If such a thing as brownouts did become a reality here, I could see it becoming the dominant social issue pretty quickly. With some of Bangkok's super malls using as much power as some small provinces, power rationing could get pretty contentious.

Any informed members out there with knowledge of the Thai power grid?

Edited April 17, 2016 by dddave

[impulse]

If they run out of water for bum guns, there will be brown-outs.

But I don't think those are the ones you're worried about...

[HLover]

Upon inspection of my garment this morning, brown outs are indeed a real threat.

[CGW]

I lived in Manilla in 1981 and we had exactly the same problem! constant brown outs! they don't have enough supply, never have had! Sure they announce how they are going to solve the problem regularly, Politicians everywhere serve themselves like in today's BP they are saying how well the "rainmaking" is doing! All fluff...

[Pib]

Hydroelectric power only provides around 7% of Thailand's electricity. The bulk is provided by natural gas/fossil fuels.

The PI has always had major electrical supply problems...brownouts were common there in the late 70's and early 80's when I lived there for years.

See this webpage at the Thai govt Energy Policy and Planning Office which talks Thailand Energy and Natural Resources.

Edited April 17, 2016 by Pib

[CGW]

Credit where it is due, Thailand does have a adequate power supply system, few people are aware there are over 300 Oil/Gas platforms in the Gulf of Thailand that fuel the power stations. (Fossil fuels is a very questionable word statement, came about so people would be happy to pay more for a resource that was going to quickly run out! Thank you Rockefeller...

[Mosha]

Daily power dips are the norm in the sticks.

Sent from my SMART_4G_Speedy_5inch using Tapatalk

[i claudius]

I just had a "brown out" at our house , it must have been all the fruit i ate yesterday

[dddave]

Hydroelectric power only provides around 7% of Thailand's electricity. The bulk is provided by natural gas/fossil fuels.

I'm surprised by such a low percentage for Hydro power...I figured must be 20 to 25%. Interesting to know.

[KhunBENQ]

I remember reading that Thailand sponsors hydroelectricity being built up in Laos and buys energy from there.

Much of it being used in the northeast (Isan) where we are.

Don't make me afraid

But as already written the vast majority esp. for the eastern seaboard (industry parks etc.) and Bangkok is from fossil fuel.

On the way from Bankgok to Pattaya you see a real big one with a couple of chimneys.

Generally power outages have become very rare, mostly restricted to short drop outs/spikes.

But at this of year when Thailand reaches it's peak power consumption (around 26 / 27 April) I am thankful for 24h uninterrupted supply.

At 42 C our house becomes unlivable without electricity.

A site in Thai:

http://www.egat.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=117

If you click the links on the left, a PDF will open with a picture of the described power plant.

The link on the right though seem to show dams with power production.

It's a tedious task to find the numbers.

Saw something like 100 MW, 300 MW which is significant.

Edited April 17, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[KhunBENQ]

A bigger one, "Mae Moh" in the north (near Lampang).

This is probably the one seen from motorway #7 from Bangkok to Pattaya (Bang Pakong):

https://www.google.co.th/maps/place/Bang+Pakong+Power+Plant/@13.499206,100.9642969,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xf3f7e16a4739e242

Edited April 17, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[Pib]

I remember reading that Thailand sponsors hydroelectricity being built up in Laos and buys energy from there.

Much of it being used in the northeast (Isan) where we are.

Don't make me afraid

But as already written the vast majority esp. for the eastern seaboard (industry parks etc.) and Bangkok is from fossil fuel.

On the way from Bankgok to Pattaya you see a real big one with a couple of chimneys.

Generally power outages have become very rare, mostly restricted to short drop outs/spikes.

But at this of year when Thailand reaches it's peak power consumption (around 26 / 27 April) I am thankful for 24h uninterrupted supply.

At 42 C our house becomes unlivable without electricity.

A site in Thai:

http://www.egat.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=117

If you click the links on the left, a PDF will open with a picture of the described power plant.

The link on the right though seem to show dams with power production.

It's a tedious task to find the numbers.

Saw something like 100 MW, 300 MW which is significant.

It's got an English language selection on it also with some pretty good energy stats in English.

Take a look at this webpage from the site that gives a bunch of stats in English.

http://www.egat.co.th/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80&Itemid=116

[impulse]

As much as some people love to gripe about Thailand:

When I turn on the tap, clean water comes out. When I flip the switch, the lights come on. When I use the BTS/MRT, the lines are running. When I go to work before dawn, or come home late, I don't get mugged. When I go to the airport, the planes are flying. Stick my card in an ATM, money comes out. Whenever I'm hungry, something is always open.

The place just works.

Is it frustrating? Sometimes. Does it look like back home? Nope. But it works.

Edited April 17, 2016 by impulse

[Fookhaht]

13 years ago power outages were regular and extended (several hours; up to a day). I canceled dozens of classes when the fans/internet/projectors/lights went off.

Now, they are rare.

The worst I had this season was a 10-minute outage at the fitness center a couple days ago.

Keep that juice a-comin'

(from Central Isaan)

Edited April 17, 2016 by Fookhaht

[KhunBENQ]

Wish I had done recordings.

So I can only estimate from memory.

Withing 5 years in an upcountry village:

We had about 3 worst case events: power outage in the evening and not come back before midnight (asleep).

Romantic night

About a dozen or so multiple hour outages during the day and about the same number of low voltage periods of x hours,

Did not count the dropouts/spikes (fraction of seconds to a few seconds).

I notice them because I still don't use a UPS for my PC.

It's not for "mission critical", not 99.99999.

I am sure that such events like a whole night outage would not happen in bigger towns or cities.

I had experienced power outages on visits in Pattaya.

One was surely a multi hour event.

All 2nd road from Klang northbound in the dark.

I think about it when I use a hotel elevator.

Touch wood: zero events since ? weeks although more and more ACs appearing in the village.

As written a longer outage would be very ugly at 42 C.

Edited April 17, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[Mosha]

Wish I had done recordings.

So I can only estimate from memory.

Withing 5 years in an upcountry village:

We had about 3 worst case events: power outage in the evening and not come back before midnight (asleep).

Romantic night

About a dozen or so multiple hour outages during the day and about the same number of low voltage periods of x hours,

Did not count the dropouts/spikes (fraction of seconds to a few seconds).

I notice them because I still don't use a UPS for my PC.

It's not for "mission critical", not 99.99999.

I am sure that such events like a whole night outage would not happen in bigger towns or cities.

I had experienced power outages on visits in Pattaya.

One was surely a multi hour event.

All 2nd road from Klang northbound in the dark.

I think about it when I use a hotel elevator.

Touch wood: zero events since ? weeks although more and more ACs appearing in the village.

As written a longer outage would be very ugly at 42 C.

Worst we had was about 4 days. Suspected causes.

Muslim terror attack.

Unions angry with TRT policies

Run out of fuel at the power station.

What it was, was a transformer in the middle of nowhere had exploded. The company had to drag a new one in with elephants we were told. True? I don't know. But 4 provinces were affected.

Sent from my SMART_4G_Speedy_5inch using Tapatalk

[Gary A]

Talking to one of the guys who works on the oil rigs I found some interesting information. He told me that the rig owners can keep all the oil they find as long as they give Thailand all the natural gas. The gas used for the generating plants is basically free. Of course the pipelines are not free.

Maybe this will help;

67 cooperatives to supply 280MW to grid

Link - http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/942245/67-cooperatives-to-supply-280mw-to-grid

[CGW]

^ Was the guy who told you that rig owners can keep what oil they found a cook?

It's rubbish, I worked many years in the GOT, The Northern part of the Gulf is mainly oil wells while the Southern part is mainly gas wells, rig owners are just that, rig owners, they don't operate the fields, the oil companies do that, (PTTEP, CVX etc) they then sell the O&G, most of the gas is sold to the Thai government for power generation.

Edited April 22, 2016 by CGW

[KhunBENQ]

Recycled from another thread.

Another new record of power consumption today.

29249 MW, max installed capacity 32000 MW.

Let's hope this years peak is now reached? (as usual at these dates)

From (real time, interactive):

http://www.egat.co.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1421:electicity-demand-realtime&catid=40&Itemid=112

Another interesting diagram on the site, a flow diagram.

Among other facts (relation of Bangkok metro vs. rest of country it shows that a lot of electricity for the north and northeast (Isan) comes from abroad (Laos quite sure). Highly dependent.

Snapshot from 16:19h (after the peak).

Edited April 27, 2016 by KhunBENQ