Situated along Thailand’s eastern seaboard, Pattaya is planning one of Southeast Asia’s best energy savings programs via a smart grid and smart-meter project. This large-scale project will change the way people and small businesses in this thriving seaside city use energy.
The project is led by the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) of Thailand, which has confirmed plans to implement a 20-year smart grid project from 2015 to 2035 in five Thai cities including Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Nakhon Ratchasima, and Hat Yai. Total investment in the project is 10 billion baht ($30 million) and will start by connecting homes and small businesses in Pattaya.
The Pattaya smart grid project includes installation of 100,000 smart meters, which will digitally send meter readings to energy suppliers and will provide households and small businesses with data that shows them their consumption and costs in real time.
The pilot implementation of the Thai smart grid project is expected to cost 2 billion baht and to be completed within the next two years in these five cities. The Pattaya project is scheduled to commence within the next few months.
With these plans, Thailand is quickly stepping into the future of energy consumption—and is setting an excellent example for countries in the ASEAN region who seek to move from passive consumption of fossil fuels to the smart, active consumption of electricity.
By this time next year, the people of Pattaya will be able to see their electricity consumption in real-time, which will allow them to make decisions about energy use that will promote cost savings and energy efficiency.
The biggest question that remains is: how will the PEA implement its Pattaya pilot project and connect these thousands of smart meters? This pilot project will be a major factor in determining the success or failure of the initiative.
The best option is to use a dedicated licensed network for the smart-meters to connect with the PEA. This will ensure that the data is safely transmitted through Thailand’s national infrastructure and will cover all 100,000 smart meters to be installed in Pattaya. The large-scale smart-meter projects in countries such as the USA and UK have opted for long-range and their smart-meters programs are better for it because they provide priority to critical infrastructure data. Pilot projects in Japan and India are using this same approach.
The PEA also has the option to use existing cellular networks or a mesh network. The problem with the cellular networks is that they are overstretched, making data transmission troublesome. But a mesh system might not be the solution for PEA due to restricted-power devices, interference with unlicensed bands, and hidden costs.
Once the PEA makes this determination, and particularly if they opt for a dedicated licensed network, the people of Pattaya will have one of the world’s best smart-metering programs. Once thousands of households and small businesses have smart-meters on their property, Thai people will quickly see the benefits and cost savings associated with the new technology.
Arthur Chu is director of the strategic customer team at Sensus, a Xylem company.