BANGKOK, April 5 – Thailand averted a national power outage today thanks to a joint energy-saving effort by the Thai public and private sector, Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal said.
He said private industrialists have reduced energy usage by 1,000 MW, and general consumers another 700 MW, contributing to a total consumption at the 2 pm peak hour at 24,955 MW while an earlier forecast for the period was 26,600 MW.
Combined energy consumption during the crucial hour reduced by 1,700 MW, he said.
Mr Pongsak said the phenomenon has added 2,450 MW to the energy reserves of Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), or at 15 per cent higher.
Another contributing factor was the favourable temperature at 37.5 degrees Celsius which helped lessen energy consumption.
He expressed appreciation to the Thai people for the joint energy-saving effort and called for a similar cooperation especially on the next crucial period on April 9-10.
EGAT governor Suthas Pattamasiriwat said he was confident that the energy supply will be normal on April 9-10 while the Federation of Thai Industries and industrialists in Thailand have been asked to cooperate in reducing power consumption.
He said the fuel tariff (FT) for electricity generation will not be increased as the volume of diesel to substitute natural gas in generating power was minimal.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called on the private sector to save energy consumption by 15 per cent while the government sets a target to reduce it by 10 per cent for the public sector.
