Thaifish

Thanks @internationalism and @proton do you have any links to insurance that doesn't up-sell.

I'm confused about the latest requirement to have Covid insurance and the Thai Pass if you hold a Non Im O Visa. Is it required for entry to the Kingdom and if so any recommendations of Insurance companies. It looks to me that insurance companies are up-selling the product for coverage that is not needed to enter. My extension expires January 2023 so do I need to take out coverage till then?

Moonlover I eat my hat. Equal day night on the graph below of BKK shows 11th/12 March?? I'm surprised about that not being closer to the 20th. Anyway I am way out. Have learnt something today!! If you play around with location to say Melbourne 20th March and compare with BKK there is a difference in day length albeit 6 min so I do not agree with the whole world experiencing 12 hours of daylight on the day of the equinox (excluding the poles as you correctly mention). Apologies to OP for stealing this thread ???? https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/thailand/bangkok?month=3&year=2022

Sorry what does AP stand for??

You are 100% correct give a day or 2... Yep they apply worldwide..It's an average date. The dates only apply if you live on the equator though. I have gone a step further and instead of using the Equator I have used Bkk North 13.7 Latitude (Declination) to narrow down the onset of the rain cleaning the air as from the original post. So 28th April Bkk there will be equal Day/Night. Equinox. Maybe the rains might be in front of the Sun's Declination or behind it but the Sun's path plays a big roll on the ITCZ weather pattern.

Huawai Inverters have no moving parts. They are silent.

You win the prize!!! Make sure you get a big one....50lt ++... Honestly worth its weight in gold... I cook the best Nam Kang (ice) in Issan so I'm told... 555

28th April the Suns zenith is directly overhead Bangkok. Equal Day/Night. The ITCZ band or Intertropical Convergence Zone brings the monsoon rains with it. The air flow will change from N/E to the S/W with the rains doing their bit cleaning the air. I thought everyone new this...?

Monthly production 1.1 Mwh. 70% lost to PEA free. No Meter and no Batteries. The amazing thing is the Contractors phoned up and said will be here in a couple of days for the 6 month service. There was no phoning them as I expected it would be a waste of time. So during clean and service I'm speaking with the young head guy about the breaker tripping in the rain..Breaker trips while guys are hosing and cleaning the panels.. Bonus...What was going to be a drive to Issan for them and return trip back to Grungtep the same day ended up with them staying o/night to rectify.. 2nd day and still not good...Need parts so will be back in a couple of days.... A couple of days has blown out to a week now.. But I believe they have a fix soon.. At least they know there is a fault and I don't believe they will just dodge the repair.. (naive me!!). I came up with an Idea to store power generated through the day. Best investment yet with Solar... I wont say what it is you can look at the picture and see if you can work it out. Its an every day cost of mine which can be up to 40 Bht (sometimes more depending on # of kids) including the kids Kanoom Outlay was 6890Bht expect to pay off in 24 weeks. Heading back to Ozz in a couple of weeks for maybe 4 months or so. Hopefully can still access the Huawei readouts.. I noticed using a VPN on my compucker computer I had to turn it off to access. So Thinking in reverse I will have to use the VPN loging in from Thailand??

Is the Harpoon still OK??

One year down on installation. Ive been hiding my head in the sand knowing ROI would not look good. So after flogging some figures as my graph readout had erroneous spurs which occurred after blackouts I rounded figures to show a more realistic calculation. Should be very close. The bottom line Return On Investment after 1 year. Self Consumption... i.e what was produced and Self Consumed. 6322.79Kwh x 4.2Bht = 26,555Bht (Free Power for the year) Cost of System 337,500Bht / 26,555Bht = 12.7 years ROI. If there was a smart meter installed then the figures would have been..... Exported to the grid 6,516Kwh at lets say 2BHt buy back price = 13,032Bht which gives a ROI of 8.5 years. I reckon @007 RED is on the money with regional PEA not having the set up to read Smart Meters up in the sticks so rather than lose face (Raksar Naa or Khai Naa... Egg face!) they just put installation off. I haven't included batteries in my figures as a third scenario as still waiting for installation also...

Not in Khon Khen but Bangkok Hospital in Korat I would recommend. Private Hospital. Excellent English.

No movement on the Western Front Issan with batteries and the PEA Meter. No surprise. Jai yen yen. Starting to put the weight on the Battery guy to make it happen.... Had enough... I'm heading back Ozz in 6 weeks and either want the batteries installed or deposit back before I go. I'm feeling sorry for the guy though. PEA just a Delete but have to deal with it their way... January's production dropped off a bit to 1.3Mwh. I wish I could store or sell the left overs...Even at 1/2 price. Still though pumping it out for the month with only 100kwh less than my record. I have been up and running now for 1 year so I have to get motivated and punch some numbers out on ROI....Trouble is PEA and no Batteries are not going to make it look good... Also glitches in the software readouts. This weeks challenge!! It's also time for the Contractors who installed the system to do their 2nd 6 monthly inspection and service. Reminder they never did the first 6 monthly due to Corona reasons....

Fortunately there are not many corrupt Imm Officers in Thailand.

I've cut my drinking down to Two times a week. Once for Three days and the other for Four.

Forgot to mention.. Had one 10Hr blackout O/night. Batteries would have helped. The Fai Bin was 994Bht for the month with 260Kwh imported from the grid ????.

The winter Solstice came and went and so did Santa. Managed to break another record with production 1.42Mwh. Lots of Sun but short days and the Inverters struggling to pump out more than 8Kw around midday. Somehow the Inverters changed from Export to Non Export during the last couple of days of November and the first couple of days of December before I picked it up.. Me thinks Big Brother in Bangkok has been playing with settings remotely?? So averaged 49Kwh per/day (using29 days to average). Santa never left me a Smart Meter or any Battery's. Exported 1.024Mwh to PEA (4300Bht). It would have been nice of them to refund in kind 2,250Bht..

That's another thorn in the backside. Installation was meant to be 3 days and it has blown out to 2 months now.. The company/contractor seams legit with paperwork provided before payment. The Luv Machine got them to send a copy of their business license and tax paid document. Its the same story with a weekly phone call and hurry up... As I do not want to go down the PEA path again waiting and waiting I have given them 1 month grace to install otherwise cancel the contract.... I can see already where this is going to lead... In the interim Im loosing 15KWH of overnight storage or 63Bht if we use it all. Glass is Mot Lao time for another Song Bad Haa

Anyway thank you to the posters for replying to my Original Post. In summary it looks like my Luv Machine has spoken and as she reckons going any further than a weekly phone call to the same person in PEA whom doesn't give a rats is going to get us nowhere. I mentioned to her that if we did a "Shirt Front" (only Ozzies would understand that saying..."visit") to PEA she could go alone and do things the Thai Way... So I have told my Rent a Riot crew to stand down for now and I will do as told. Yes have signed up for the scheme. Apart from initial paperwork which was just basically a notification of setting up we have had two "Official Visits" firstly from three guys that checked Tax had been paid!! I still cant work out what that visit was about and either can the Luv Machine. The second visit a few readings where taken from the Solar fuse box's. That all happened about a month ago so PEA do know we exist. Yes somethings in Thailand are very frustrating for a fellang to put up with. Above is a readout from last month with Export 959.54Kwh. The rebate I believe is 2.2Bht per Kwh (i have heard 1.8Bht but verbally told 2.2 from PEA Nang Rong). Using 2.2bht I gave away 2,110bht for the month and we are deliberately wasting power. Jai Yen Yen fellang!!!! have another sip of Song Bad Haa. On top of giving it away PEA is sellingit back to the neighbor for 4.2Bht and come the wet season I will have to buy it back when the Solar is not producing enough. Just give me the whole Bottle will ya....

@Bandersnatch might pick up on this thread... He has a pretty impressive water purification system.

We had contractors install a Solar system to our residence In Issan. In the contract we paid upfront for the installation of a Smart Meter which was something like 4,000bht so we could sell excess power back to PEA. We were told by Contractors it could take up to 3 months for the installation. Eleven months later and still not installed. We have been doing weekly phone calls to Korat PEA for the last eight months to hurry up with basically no headway. I'm trying to find an avenue to put in a customer complaint about the lack of service.. The PEA website does not appear to have a Customer Feedback link so we can explain our issue. My Issan Luv Machine thinks it is impossible to complain to them.!! Chasing the Contractors to do something about it is not going to work. Yes we have tried. Its a PEA thing. Has anybody put a complaint in or are we the only unsatisfied customers in Thailand!! How was it done?

Good thread!!! My 2 bobs worth being a newbie to solar for nearly a year now. Orientation of panels important.. I have noticed that even though the Sun is low on the horizon I am averaging more production now per day than when the Sun was overhead. In the wet season I could see my 10Kw system pump out easily 9.5++Kw whereas now the panels are struggling to make 8KW. Even though less KW the average sunshine is greater so more production per day. During the wet season the clouds build up from midday on so panels facing West are not going to be fully efficient. Your orientation is not the best. My 2 bobs worth! For the record I got caught by PEA through my own fault being Cocky running the meter backwards. In a way I wanted to get caught as I thought it might hurry up the installation of the PEA Smart Meter so I could sell power back to them.... Big mistake learnt...!!

There are heaps of 10KW single phase systems. My 10KW system is single phase. I'm sure PEA is aware our system is 10KW. Nothing has been mentioned about it being to big (yet) for the feed in tariff. If It is knocked back because it is over 5KW then there is going to be hell to be payed for the installer selling the package. Have been waiting 11 for months now for the Smart Meter with only 2 visits from PEA. On the paperwork which I have a copy of they acknowledge it is a 10KW system. Single Phase. 15/45 meter reader.

What did the male centipede say when the female centipede walked past? WOW. Nice set of legs, set of legs, set of legs, set of legs, set of legs....!!!!

Does this work?? I think it would...!! 12v Murphy Liquid Pressure gauge with a magnetic switch. Once preset pressure is reached it cuts the power supply to motor.. No need to go through the controller. The pump is more than likely a low pressure centrifugal style so the Murphy gauge can be set anywhere from 0 bar/psi upwards. There will be back pressure due to length of pipes anyway. The holding tank needs a simple float switch to stop the water so when its full the increased back-pressure in the pipe trips the Murphy.....? 19 days till x-mass.... https://www.fwmurphy.com/products/gages/20p-25p-series