Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal on Wednesday ordered the electricity agencies and the regulator to come up with a better chain of command in the wake of the blanket blackout throughout the southern region.
Mr Pongsak was apparently unhappy about the outage, as no officials of the Electricity Generating of Thailand (Egat) and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) stepped up to make decisions after learning of the short supply of power to the South.
They should have quickly ordered blackouts in some areas to save the entire region, but they failed, he said at a meeting called to assess the situation.
"I've ordered the agencies and the regulator to review the decision-making process to make clear the line of command so that what happened will not be repeated," the minister said.
Thana Putarungsi, the Egat deputy governor in charge of transmission system, said authority to make the decision rested on the Energy Regulatory Commission. "Regulators have to authorise what areas are to be blacked out until the supply from the plants returns to normal," he said.
Pallapa Ruangrong, a commission member, said investigations will be launched on the case and consumers will be compensated in FT.
The blackout on Tuesday was the worst since May 18, 1978, when the entire country was in the dark after a power supply failure.
The outage began at 6.52pm on Tuesday. Some areas were restored at 9pm. Power returned to the rest of the region by 11.45pm. All provinces south of Surat Thani to the Malaysian border were affected, including popular tourist centres such as Hat Yai and Phuket.
The cause of the problem was a fault on two high-voltage cables - each carrying 500 kilovolts (kV) - in Ratchaburi province, officials said.
Two other cables rated at 230 kV also failed.
Electricity workers were repairing a 500-kV cable when lightning hit the other one, completely shutting down the feed of the two main lines to the region, they added.
Exact damages from the blackout are being assessed. It could cost the food and rubber processing sector about 10 billion baht, and the government must ensure it does not happen again, Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) secretary-general Tanit Sorat said on Wednesday.
Mr Tanit said fisheries, rubber and frozen food producers were all immediately affected as they need electricity for processing machinery and to store their goods.
There were no exact details of the cost to industry, but in the long run the problem would affect exports in these sectors as their products would not stay fresh without power.
Most freezing plants are located in Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Songkhla, Trang, Pattani and Satun provinces, he said.
Charoen Wangananont, secretary general of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said there was a blackout in Phang Nga and Phuket for about two hours. Its impact was minimal, but the government must make sure the problem does not occur again because it would erode tourists' confidence, he said.
Management of both Hat Yai and Phuket airports confirmed their airports were not affected by the blackout. Their backup electricity supply took over immediately the power outage occurred.
The emergency systems could provide 24 hours of electricity, but to ensure there was no possible problem in the future they had ordered an increase in capacity.
Somchart Pimtanapoonporn, chairman of the Association of Hat Yai-Songkhla Hoteliers, said tourism businesses such as major hotels in Hat Yai were not affected by the blackout because they all have backup electricity generators.
There was also an unexpected benefit. The power outage forced tourists to return early to their hotels and business boomed, with restaurants and bars inside the buildings all crowded, said Mr Somchart.
Witoon Simachokedee, permanent secretary for industry, said damage to factories was estimated at 400 million baht in five provinces, with Surat Thani, Chumphon and Krabi hardest hit, according to an Mcot radio report.
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