Northern Thailand went completely without power yesterday after a failure at Lampang’s Mae Moh Power Plant. The northern provinces of Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lamphun and Phayao from 11.33am on Friday.
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) later apologized on it’s Facebook Page.
A problem at the Mae Moh 3 high-voltage station caused a power supply drop of 791.9 megawatts, Janyong Wongjunpong, for system control and operations said.
He apologized for the electrical failure and its impact on people in the affected provinces.
He said resumption of the power supply from the station began at 11.44am and was completely restored at 12.30pm.
The management of the Mae Moh electrical plant said in its Facebook page that a signal error detached breakers in the transmission system. It also apologized for the incident.
Re-Powering Mae Moh Electrical Power Plant
Meanwhile, Egat will start public hearings with stakeholders and local communities on Saturday in a bid to re-power two existing units of the Mae Moh coal-fired power plant in Lampang.
Egat is also budgeting 37 billion baht for development cost to re-power Units 8 and 9 in Mae Moh district.
Units 8 and 9 have a combined power capacity of 540 megawatts with plans to upgrade to 660MW. Egat expects the two repowered units to have higher efficiency, less fuel consumption and lower emissions.
Units 8 and 9 are running on standby mode, and two power generators under the units will be decommissioned in 2022. Mae Moh is also Thailand’s first coal-fired power plant and has been operated by Egat since 1975.
Lignite coal from the Mae Moh basin serves the Mae Moh Electrical Power Plant.
The Mae Moh plant can supply 50% of electricity to the North, 30% to the central region.
Mae Moh electrical power plant will also be developed as a smart city with efficient power management in the future.
