[12]. A map of hydropower plants in Thailand is displayed in Fig. 7.
The details of large-, micro-, and medium-scales hydropower in
Thailand are presented in Tables 6 and 7, respectively.
The first development of large hydropower began in 1964 with
the construction of Bhumiphol Dam in Tak province with the
electricity productivity of 535 MW. In 1974, Sirikit Dam was built
in Uttaradit province with the electricity productivity of 375 MW.
Table 6 indicates that Thailand had the total electricity productivity
of 3387 MW from the large hydro-powered electricity plants.
The Bhumiphol Dam has the highest productivity rate in Thailand
at 779 MW, followed by Srinagarind Dam at 720 MW, and Sirikit
Dam and Lam Takhong Dam at the same rate of 500 MW.
At present, there are many small hydropower plants in operation
in rural and remote areas of Thailand. In 2013, according to a DEDE
database, there were 42 sites of micro to medium hydropower
connected into the national grid with a total productivity around
110 MW as shown in Table 7. Among the regions in Thailand, the
northern part of Thailand had the largest number of micro to
medium hydropower plant, i.e., 23 sites with total capacity of
37.68 MW. The total number of micro to medium hydropower plants
located in other regions of country was 19. DEDE also reported that
in 2011, 12 small and 2 medium hydropower projects with totaling
33.26 MW of capacity would be installed in the future [13]. In rural
and remote areas away from the grid, 75 projects of micro hydropower
plants with the installed capacity of approximately 2.49 MW
were installed around the country to generate electricity to directly
feed the local demand of communities [14].