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The country’s consumers
and electricity utilities to
become inter-connected and
to gain intelligence information
on their real-time supply and
demand behaviour.
Thailand to benefit greatly
from smart grid
An Accenture survey found that energy
utilities in Thailand could potentially see
their revenues shredded by 15% from
an evolution of new energy technologies
that include energy conservation and
demand response, energy efficiencies,
energy substitution, and distributed
generation resources. The leading global
consulting firm has joined forces with
Chulalongkorn University to advise
a Thai power utility to develop its
roadmap toward the smart grid system.
85 utilities executives from 20 countries
took part in the study, which also found
a growing threat in the areas of greater
competition and rising risk of grid faults.
The impact of new technologies on
utilities’ revenues is estimated at up to
$48 billion in the United States, and up
to €61 billion in Europe, based on the
potential power load reduction. In the
case of Thailand, more opportunities
than threats are seen for the country as
it leverages new technologies, including
distributed energy resources such as solar
power and energy storage technologies to
lower its electricity costs. Solar power has
already reached the tipping point to gain
the grid parity in Thailand, but due to its
intermittent nature, the country needs
to strengthen the reliability of its power
grid through digitising it with analytics
technology and automated systems, and
on the consumer side, smart meters.
A project to set up an ultra-high-voltage
direct current power transmission line,
which has theworld’s largest UHVDC power
conversion volume, has been launched
in Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China. The
800kV line will supply electricity
cateringto25%ofthetotalpower
demand in Hunan, according to
the State Grid Corp of China.
The €3.75 billion project will
be completed in 2017 and will
set up a power transmission line
with a total length of 2,383km and
two converter stations with a capacity
of 16 million kilowatts. Annual power
transmission capacity of the new line to
be set up between Jiuquan and Hunan will
reach 40bn kilowatt-hour.
China: UHV DC transmission
project in Xiangtan
Staging the future
State Grid Corporation of China kicked-off
the pre-feasibility study for the 660kV
Xinjiang-Pakistan direct current power
transmission project and the 1,100-kV
Kazakhstan-HenanDCtransmissionproject.
The Kazakhstan-Henan DC project has a
rated power transmission capacity
of 12 million kilowatts and will
transfer power to Nanyang of
China’s Henan. The 2.18km
Xinjiang-Pakistan DC project
has a rated power transmission
capacity of 4 million kW and
will transfer power from either Ili
Kazakh or Kuqa of Xinjiang to Pakistan’s
Lahore. About €2.29 billion investment are
expected to be spent to install six to eight
660,000kW thermal power sets.
Study kicked off for
Xinjiang-Pakistan connection
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