Pattaya set as first city to use “PEA Smart Grid” technology

BANGKOK, September 12 (TNA) - The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) has introduced the “PEA Smart Grid” technology to be utilized for the first time next year in Pattaya of Thailand's eastern seaside Chonburi Province. PEA Governor Narongsak Kamales told reporters on Wednesday that Pattaya, a most internationally-renowned Thai beach resort city, has been selected as a pilot site where PEA’s advanced technologies called “Smart Grid” will be applied. Narongsak acknowledged that, under the 500-million-baht pilot project, the newly-introduced power system will serve up to 100,000 people in Pattaya as of 2013, and that PEA has also planned to further spend up to two billion baht to expand the Smart Grid technology to some 400,000 people linving in Thailand's northern Chiang Mai Province, southern Phuket Province and northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima Province in the foreseeable future. According to the PEA governor, PEA will join forces with Bangkok-based King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang or KMITL and CAT Telecom Public Company Limited to keep updating the Smart Grid technology and overall telecommunications in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). "Smart Grid" is an electricity network which delivers power from suppliers to consumers via the utilisation of information technology or IT to save energy and reduce costs.(TNA)