Thread: Solar Energy

I don't usually have anything to contribute to threads of a building nature, nevertheless I would be failing in my duty not to at least try.

What don't I see more solar energy panels in the roofs or is it rooves of houses in Thailand? Even in England where it's only sunny for 2 weeks a year, we have such things. I can only assume they are too damn expensive here?

Thai are not really into hot showers , so they isn't any cost saving for them

Originally Posted by Thetyim

Thai are not really into hot showers , so they isn't any cost saving for them

But they do use electricity, right?

No reason why LoS doesn't utilise solar energy, apart from ambivalence, corruption, apathy and the genetic inability to get anything right that needs to be mentally thought through, but the couple of firms into solar don't seem to be very competitive and am certainly not impressed with what I've seen of their end products.

Could be they're plodding along waiting/hoping for the Euro crutch of some lucrative grant/free loan.

I had a friend on Saipan who was "off the grid" so he had to use solar panels for electricity. He had two problems:

1 - The solar panels were not designed for the tropics and had a high failure rate.

2 - Batteries do not last so long in the tropics so they were a huge expense.

As soon as he could get on the grid he did and abandoned solar, even though power on Saipan cost about US$0.13 per kwh at that time.

Solar water heaters will work fairly cheap, but solar photovoltic is another matter.
Each panel only puts out a small amount of watts, anywhere from 25 to 150 watts, and a 150 panel will cost well over $100, so running anything but fans is cost prohibitive, aircon is out and after sundown even the fans or lights will not work without a large bank of expensive batterys, and an Inverter, which also costs a lot of money.

Most Thai only run a fan and a TV set, and their Electric Bill is always less than 1000 baht, so therefore a panel that would run a TV set in direct sunlight would cost them more than 6 months electric bills, and thats not figuring in all of the other required gear.