Featured Energy Company: Wang Noi Power Plant

The Wang Noi Power Plant is located on the area of 280 acres at Wang Noi District within Ayutthaya province.

It is located approximately 70 kilometers north of Bangkok with total generating capacity in excess of 2 GW supplying power to central region of Thailand.


Wang Noi Power Plant n brief

The power plant is equipped with 3 combined cycle blocks, incorporating 6 gas turbines and 3 steam turbines. The official synchronization was completed in April, 1996 and the Commercial Operation date (COD) in May, 1996. The main fuel for plant generation is natural gas from two sources – the Gulf of Thailand and Myanmar. Diesel oil of 60 million liters has been reserved as supplementary fuel in case of gas supply interruption. The total capacity of Wang Noi Power Plant is 2,027 MW and the gross production from 1996 to 2011 was 147,428,708,433 million kWh.

An Inlet air cooling system of 20,000 ton is installed at Block 3 of the combined cycle power plant. The installation was completed in June 2012 and can further enhance the capacity by 70 MW to the gross generation. Wang Noi Block 4 combined cycle power plant is currently under construction. The project will be completed in June 2014 and will add the capacity of 785 MW to the present generating system.

Wang Noi Power Plant developed an emergency response plan by building a flood barrier during Thailand’s worst flood in 2011, that protect and saved the power plant from severe impact. This barrier was enhanced to cover 5 kilometers in length to protect the total area of 1.28 million sq meters.

Stage one of the CCGT. Photo: power-technology

Why Wang Noi Power Plant?

The plant is an example of power generation plant that promotes efficient energy utilisation technology, which carries out its operations in complete compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. From July 2007 to present, the power plant has given over ฿450 million (US$14.3 mil) to Community Development Fund and has carried out a wide range of social and environmental activities to develop and build better living for the community around it, such as, public health, education, occupational promotion, cultural conservation etc.

It has been accredited with ISO 14001, ISO9001, and TIS18001 certification. The power plant was honoured for its outstanding business operations for nine consecutive years since 2002 and is proud of achievement of 2 million hours of operation with zero accident.

This plant is also the site of choice for Technical Plant Tour by the organiser of the Renewable Energy World Asia Conference & Expo in Bangkok, Thailand early October 2012.

New iPhone (iPhone 5) to debut on September 12, 2012

If you have been waiting for the next iteration of the iPhone, mark your calender on September 12 and tune in to the online news.

Image grab from Bloomberg Businessweek headlines video on July 31. Businessweek believes it has some details of the next iPhone.


According to iMore, Apple is planning to debut the new iPhone (iPhone 5 or whatever they decide to call it later) on September 12, 2012, and to be followed by its release on September 21. This would mean that the current iPhone 4S would have been in the market for less than a year by the time the next generation is announced.

My source for mostly accurate information of Apple products, The Loop gave its 'yep' to the piece of news. This information comes from sources who have proven accurate in the past. The website owner, Jim Dalrymple was at the event in California when the iPhone 4S was announced last year.

Details, according to Bloomberg Businessweek include:

• Larger screen                                (current iPhone 4S screen is 3.5")
• Thinner body                                 ( iPhone 4S is 9.3mm)
• Works with the faster 4G network    (iPhone 4S is on 3G)
• First new major design since 2010

Really, this is nothing like the details that people want to hear but at least it is something that is sure to be included in the new gadget.

We have been hearing that the new iPhone is likely to spot a 4-inch display, with a 16:9 screen version, and that newer iOS devices will have smaller dock connector. Rumour has been circulating around for a while now that that SIM card would shrink further from the current 'micro' size.

It seems that Apple is planning to squeeze quite a lot of things into the new gadget. But for the iDevice fans, they'd surely hope this iteration is not just to keep up with Samsung S3, but to set the bar higher.

iPhone 4S is just about 11 months in the market and I am one of the earlier buyers of this version, so, I'm not really looking at upgrading to iPhone 5 just yet. But we'll see; hopefully Tim Cook and his team come up with some surprises up their sleeves.

Worst blackout in history - Over 600 million people in India affected

Nation-wide blackout, affected more than half the population.

A familiar news to you? I bet my money you won't be totally surprised (although perhaps totally annoyed) by what happened in India yesterday.

This was the worst blackout in the second most populous nation's history involving more than half the country, as an electrical grid collapse in 14 states - then spread to a total 19. The incident deprived more than 600 million people of power. Some journalists put the figure as 620 to 670million people.


Massive traffic jam in New Delhi, following a power outage (one of the world's worst) that spread over half of India, July 31, 2012. Photo: AP/Rajest Kumar Singh


It is that bad, but how bad?

If you live in Sabah, Malaysia, you will understand how it feels to be deprived of power supply on a frequent basis. Recently in April 2012, we experienced a state-wide blackout for almost the whole day and in some areas, power was only restored completely the next day.

One hour of blackout is bad. What more with going through the day in total darkness; and added to that, a bonus of another half a day during the next.

In India's case, many were still without power on the second day. The blackout, one of the largest in global history by the number of people affected, dramatically underlined the concerns industry leaders have raised for years — that the nation's horribly inefficient power sector is dragging on the economy and could undermine India's longer-term ambition to become an industrialised nation.


What caused the blackout?

The power grid collapsed because some states apparently drew more power than they were authorised to do to meet the rising demand during the summer.

According to NDTV, the blackout was allegedly triggered after four states - Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan drew much more than their assigned share of power. Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have denied they exceeded their limit, though. Uttar Pradesh is said to over-drew its quota from the Northern Grid by 1200 MW, nearly a third of what a city like Delhi is entitled to in a day.

Blackouts are a frequent occurrence in many Indian cities because of shortage of power supply and an old-fashioned electricity grid. Too bad, this the common excuse/explanation offered by the power utilities everywhere. That's us included.


And its implication?

Nothing!

There is no need to even look at 'what would its implication be' unless people start looking at the underlying problems/issues, such as what the New York Times reported:

[...] For a country considered a rising economic power, Blackout Tuesday — which came only a day after another major power failure — was an embarrassing reminder of the intractable problems still plaguing India: inadequate infrastructure, a crippling power shortage and, many critics say, a yawning absence of governmental action and leadership.

India’s coalition government, already battered for its stewardship of a wobbling economy, again found itself on the defensive, as top ministers could not definitively explain what had caused the grid failure or why it had happened on consecutive days. Theories for the extraordinarily extensive blackout across much of northern India included excessive demands placed on the grid from certain regions, due in part to low monsoon rains that forced farmers to pump more water to their fields, and the less plausible possibility that large solar flares had set off a failure.

By Tuesday evening, power had been restored in most regions, and many people in major cities barely noticed the disruption, because localized blackouts are so common that many businesses, hospitals, offices and middle-class homes are equipped with backup diesel fuel generators.
“This is a huge failure,” said Prakash Javadekar, a spokesman for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. “It is a management failure as well as a failure of policy. It is policy paralysis in the power sector.” [...]

Time to reflect

The situation and power supply issue in Malaysia, and particularly in Sabah is somewhat similar in the India case in the sense that we are facing shortage of supply and the generally antiquated electricity grid/equipment. We can always give excuses and say that we fare better when bench-marked against India but that would be more of a 'feel-good' kind of assessment rather than the absolute meaning of the word 'better'.

It's time to be firm and aggressive in dealing with power supply problems. Allocate more fund in the coming budget preparation as electricity is now a need rather than want.