During the 2016 IEEE PES General Meeting in Boston, MA, USA, Thailand Chapter was presented for the Outstanding Chapter Award (OCA) as a small chapter based on 2015 performance. This is the first achievement for IEEE PES award in the history of Thailand Chapter.

Year 2015 is another year that Thailand Chapter had conducted and completed several activities/events which had supported and been aligned with the vision of IEEE PES. Thailand Chapter organized 11 activities which were Region-10 chapter chair meeting, eight (8) technical seminars and among them are two (2) technical tutorial sessions and three (3) joint seminars, a large social/technical event – 2015 Dinner Talk and one regional conference – ISGT Asia 2015. The last two events had more than 400 participants each. These activities were in cooperation with IEEE Thailand section, power and energy related organizations: national electric utilities, i.e. EGAT, MEA and PEA, CEPT and academia as well as private sectors. Personnel from the organizations were also members of Thailand Chapter. In addition, representatives from the organizations and even from the government and official bureaus who had experiences in the field were invited give the keynote speeches, presentations, tutorials and/or participate in the panel discussions.

The success for Thailand Chapter are based on three (3) elements – 3 pillars of success: Volunteer mindset, Teamwork and Cooperation. Chapter members spend extra time from their routine works to dedicate for organizing chapter activities; they are working together and have regular sub-meetings/meetings to plan, execute and follow up; cooperation with various organizations based on Chapter members’ networks also play the important roles to make all activities be organized successfully. Advices and learnings from regional chapter chair meeting and regional chapter representatives also significantly helped Thailand Chapter to align with the strategic direction and process of IEEE PES.

2016 is the Year of Step Change. Thailand Chapter has more members and continues working based on the 3 pillars of success. Working group structure has been implemented in order to efficiently organize and follow up activities of Thailand Chapters. These have resulted in total 28 activities in 2016: 11 technical seminars/conferences (incl. joint seminars with other organizations), 2 university programs, 5 tutorial sessions, 1 social event – 2016 Dinner Talk, 2 technical visits, 5 chapter regular meetings as well as attending in IEEE PES General Meeting and Region-10 chapter chair meeting. This has significantly increased from Year 2015.

For member support, chapter membership growth is more than 20% in the last 2 years which was benefited from several promotion activities (mainly through PES activities and social media). Outstanding Engineer Award (OEA) has been presented annually to the selected recipient and the award ceremony is regularly organized at the Dinner Talk Event which has more than 500 participants from various sectors related to Power & Energy. Thailand Chapter has been preparing for more awards and membership advancement program which are planned to implement in incoming years.

We have all the times involved students, young engineers and women engineers in those activities and they are the instrumental parts for the success of the chapter activities. University program to provide power & energy related knowledge to university students is a fundamental student program in Thailand Chapter. The working groups are now preparing the scholarship program and more sustainable programs for student activities. In addition, the working groups are also planning for the programs to strengthen the involvement of young engineers and women engineers in Thailand Chapter.

For 2017, Thailand Chapter has a list of several programs to be implemented from the planning out of the working groups with the challenges, e.g. In-trend topics for tutorial sessions, member support on growth retention and advancement, student support programs. Thailand Chapter has fun with the plan to execute and make it happen in this year.

Acronyms:

• EGAT: Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand
• MEA: Metropolitan Electricity Authority
• PEA: Provincial Electricity Authority
• CEPT: Center of Excellence in Electrical Power Technology