Pattaya smartens up

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to exceed his country’s climate goals. China and Japan both committed to continue efforts to combat climate change. Europe is holding fast to the principles of the agreement. Even several US states have announced their own plans to adhere to the Paris agreement. 
In Southeast Asia, we need to look no further than Thailand’s eastern seaboard, where Pattaya is rolling out one of the region’s best energy savings programmes via its “smart grid” and “smart meter” projects.
The project is being led by the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) of Thailand, which has confirmed plans to implement a 20-year smart grid project for 2015 to 2035 in five cities, Those cities are Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Nakhon Ratchasima and Hat Yai. Total investment in the project is Bt2 billion and the project will start by connecting homes and small businesses in Pattaya.
It includes installation of 100,000 meters, which will digitally send meter readings to energy suppliers and provide households and small businesses with data that shows them their consumption and costs in real time.
The implementation of the smart grid project is expected to be complete within the next two years in the five cities. The Pattaya project is scheduled to start within the next few months.
With these plans, Thailand is quickly stepping into the future of energy consumption – and is setting an excellent example for countries in the Asean region who seek to move from passive consumption of fossil fuels to the smart, active consumption of electricity. By this time next year, the people of Pattaya will be able to see their electricity consumption in real time, which will allow them to make decisions about energy use that will promote cost savings, and thereby, energy efficiency.
The biggest remaining question is: how will the PEA implement its Pattaya pilot project and connect these thousands of smart meters? This pilot project will be a major factor in determining the success or failure of the initiative.
PEA will face a couple of options. The best option is to use a dedicated licensed network for the smart meters to connect with the PEA. This will ensure that the data is safely transmitted through its critical national infrastructure and will cover all of the 100,000 smart meters to be installed in Pattaya. Large-scale smart meter projects in countries such as the United States and United Kingdom have opted for a dedicated network, and their smart-meter programmes are better for it because they provide priority to critical infrastructure data. Pilot projects in Japan and India are using this same approach.

ARTHUR CHU is leading smart meter projects in Asia Pacific, including in Japan and India. He is also actively involved in proposal planning for the Pattaya smart city initiative. He is director of the strategic customer team at Sensus, a Xylem company.