Smart Grid National Pilot Project in Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand

The system reliability is a main factor that affects on the growth of business in Mae Hong Son Province, which is located in the Northern region of Thailand. Mae Hong Son Province is far as deep valley hemmed in by the high mountain ranges of the Shan Hills. Since it is the mountainous province in the Northern part, the electricity is hardly supplied through the transmission line. There is no transmission line of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) linked from the main grid to Mae Hong Son Province due to the limitation of line routes passing prohibited areas, such as watershed area class 1 A and national park. The power is currently delivered through the distribution line of Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) by receiving the electric power from EGAT at the Mae Tang Substation of EGAT through 115 kV and 22 kV distribution lines. Moreover, the demand consumption is fulfilled by very small power plants (VSPP) in Mae Hong Son Province. In case that the power demand of Mae Hong Son Province during the hot season is increased very much, the dispatching on diesel generators is required with high fuel cost. Sometimes, it also effects on the system reliability and power quality in Mae Hong Son Province EGAT is undertaking the study to develop the national pilot project with the collaboration of related organizations to improve the system reliability for Mae Hong Son Province. From the energy supply aspect, Mae Hong Son Province has several basic factors to enable the renewable energy generation, that is, high potential renewable energy including solar, hydro, biomass, and biogases. However, most renewable energy resources are intermittent, the smart grid technologies such as: energy storage and demand response shall be applied to handle the uncertainty of the power supply. The generation capacity in Mae Hong Son Province shall meet with the power demand in the province with sustainable and green power supply. From the operation point of view, the system reliability can be improved with the automatic control and operation, for example, self monitoring and self healing. The network can be automatically adapted and isolated when faults occur in the electrical system. With this concept, the power grid shall be smarter. This paper proposes the study of smart grid implementation in Mae Hong Son Province with three strategies, i.e. smarter grid, sustainable grid, and green grid, to improve the system reliability, promote the sustainability and green province policies in Mae Hong Son Province for micro grid system. In EGAT Smart Grid Roadmap Plan, EGAT plans to implement the Mae Hong Son Pilot Project as the national pilot project. This pilot project will be studied and demonstrate with smart grid, micro grid in order to find gab analysis especially renewable energy in Mae Hong Son Province. There is a need to appraise potential renewable energy to achieve goal. The policy on Smart Grid is being the main policy of all countries especially Thailand for supporting the green electricity concept. Many utilities/authorities in Thailand have established the working groups in order to determine the optimal framework to develop Smart Grid. In this paper, the feasibility study of Smart Grid Pilot Project in Mae Hong Son Province is investigated. Since Smart Grid concepts shall be applied to Mae Hong Son Province to propose to be the National Pilot Project of Thailand, the potential of renewable energy, demand response, and energy management system are reviewed. In additions, the gap analysis between the existing condition and the future goal to be determined as the key success factors of the National Pilot Project. From this study, it can be concluded that the Mae Hong Son Pilot Project can improve reliability indices, i.e. SAIFI, SAIDI as well as the concept of green province and sustainability development can be achieved.