Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered an investigation into the causes of the massive power blackout in 14 southern provinces on Tuesday night, and the preparation of contingency plans to ensure it does not happen again.
A family eats their dinner by candlelight.
The blackout occurred about 6.30pm and lasted at least two hours, affecting most provinces in the South of the country.
It was directly caused by a failure in a high-voltage cable running from Ratchaburi province to Bang Saphan district in Prachuap Khiri Khan, the main power transmission line from the Central region to the South, according to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.
“Southern provinces have problems with an inadequate power supply,” Ms Yingluck said on Wednesday morning, before leaving to discuss bilateral relations and trade in Japan, and attend an international conference.
Ms Yingluck said supplementary power cables are generally used to maintain electricity supplies to the South, so the blackout may have been caused by maintenance work or over-loading. In the short term, all cables must be checked, she said.
In the long term, there should be discussions about the country’s overall electricity consumption, to bring a balance between demand and reserve power, she added.
Asked whether the outage will help justify the building of more power plants in the South, Ms Yingluck said Thailand needs more electricity, but there must be discussions on which methods of supply will have the least impact on nearby communities.
Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal will call a meeting with senior officials of all related agencies on Wednesday morning to investigate the failure.
Thanit Sorat, secretary-general of Federation of Thai Industries, estimated damage to the industrial sector from the blackout to be as much as 10 billion baht, because it caused the shutdown of machinery in industries such as seafood processing, pineapple canning, cold storage and rubber processing.
The private sector wants the government to ensure there is no repeat of the blackout in the future, Mr Thanit said.