BANGKOK, 22 May 2013 The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand stated that last night’s large-scale blackout in the South was caused by the overloading of main transmission lines.
According to Deputy EGAT governor Thana Phuttarangsi, due to the region’s excessive demand for electricity supply, additional power had to be transferred from Ratchaburi plants to the southern line. Once the system detected overloads, it automatically disconnected circuits to protect the power lines.
While power stations in Surat Thani and a few other provinces had the capacity to produce back-up energy supply, others could not, making it necessary for EGAT to rely on power imported from Malaysia.
Repair work was carried out in Prachuap Kirikhan late last night and power was restored at 11.45PM.
Mr Thana pointed out that its electricity grid was unable to keep up with rising demand in the southern region, where major tourist destinations such as Phuket and Krabi are located. He noted that the extensive blackout is the biggest outage in the past 30 years.
EGAT made known that in order to prevent a repeat of the outage, a power plant is being planned for Songkla, which is expected to be completed in April of next year. Another coal power plant is also being considered for Krabi in a bid to meet growing demand for energy.
