Toyota Idling Thai Plants April 5 to Ease Power Crunch
Manufacturers, which use about 35% of Thailand’s electricity supply, are being urged to suspend production on the day when the country’s power reserve is expected to fall to roughly half the level needed to ensure national power security.
Toyota Thailand plans to shut down its three plants April 5 to help the country avoid a nationwide loss of electricity.
The Ministry of Energy is urging the manufacturing sector, which uses about 35% of Thailand’s electricity supply, to suspend production on the day when the country’s power reserve is expected to fall to less than 800 Mw, well below the 1,500 Mw needed to ensure national power security.
Supplies are to be dramatically reduced as a result of maintenance work on a gas platform in neighboring Myanmar that will interrupt the delivery of natural gas imported by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to generate electricity.
The government plans to fire up old electric power plants and increase domestic and international electricity purchases during the loss of supply from Myanmar. But the electricity shortage is expected to peak on April 5.
“As the government has expressed concern about the case of electricity failure in certain countries or may be turned off on April 5, the date when the backup power supply will be the lowest, Toyota is willing to cooperate fully with the government in reducing the energy consumption,” Toyota Thailand President Kyoichi Tanada says in a statement.
“We are to stop the run at all three Toyota plans on April 5.”
The auto maker plans to make up the lost day of production by May 4. Toyota also is working with its parts suppliers to have them suspend or reduce output on April 5 as well, Tanada says.
Toyota is Thailand’s biggest auto maker with annual capacity of almost 700,000 units.
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