Daily brownouts and blackouts in Amphoe Maewang and implications of recent literature

[WeekendRaider]

I have been living in the Amphoe Sanpatong and Maewang for almost two decades and use UPS for my desktops computers.  In recent years, and especially this year it seems to me, there are more frequent brownouts and interruptions daily.  we drop as low as 170 volts or so when it is hot especially in the middle evening period.  perhaps it is that my village needs a better transformer and we are waiting for that to play out.  but I am not so sure.

in fact, even while I post this my UPS is clacking and issuing alarms.  but it is much more than annoying because I am a science person and have two very recent articles in my mind.  Rosenfeld et. al. from January of 2019, and Freund May 2019.  I won't go into that for.... social reasons.  why folks like Paul Volcker being interviewed by Ray Dalio on a fairly recent Youtube video spoke sotto voce about 'the younger generation'  you know?  anyways, just in case that rings for anyone, but notwithstanding all of that......  

the brownouts and outright interruptions seem to occur mostly at 7 to 11 pm. 

when all but only a few of my neighbors have not either already gotten prepared to work at the morning market, by sleeping, or are maybe watching TV.  

is anyone else thinking about the risk of what happens if 2020 or any other year further out falls into a pervasive pattern such as 2015-2016 or 1997?
and that my rural power problem is not just a transformer.
and that if we visit the 39 to low 40 degree range here during such future times, the village tank pump might be out for while.  gulp.  that sort of thang,

the village water tower shared by 3 villages today.

kind of expensive to deal with fully, solar storage and a bore hole well or many more tanks at the least.

any electrical guys... or gals out there in Thaivisa.com land have ideas on whether the grid, which from what I have read the government uses GDP figures plus a negative population growth of 0.2% to figure out spare capacity..... but not use tourism numbers of folks who stay in the 'weahaung' and switch on air con and other stuff at about the same time....... that the brownouts in Maewang get a lot worse.  on such a scale that the area in the weahaung where I buy and repair my UPS have all been turned into 'hotels'.... and China is about to run a current account deficit?  ya know? or for whatever reason the grid is not up to snuff now.  I don't know about these things.  anyone do?

am I 'paranoid'?  or should I get ready to spend a bit of Baht on a borehole well and solar storage?

yeah, I have already decided the solar is a good idea anyways... but what about the much more expensive stuff?  if we go over the top and lose power or more likely we lose the pump from power problems it may be quite too late to shop around for a borewell truck's services and install equipment that a lot of other folks will also be thinking of at the same time.  my assumption being that it might not be just one village or even just one amphoe or province at the same time...... Freund and Rosenfeld and other stuff.

 

if this is a worry, I want to do something in 2019.  during the baby ENSO.

 

takers?                                     

[worgeordie]

Instead of repairing the infrastructure of the Electrical system,

the Government are are giving 3 months of discounts on electric

bills to all users ,very short  sighted, the money they are giving

away would be better used on fixing all the problems,this rainy

season I have had less outages ONLY because we have had so little

rain.

regards worgeordie

[WeekendRaider]

33 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

Instead of repairing the infrastructure of the Electrical system,

the Government are are giving 3 months of discounts on electric

bills to all users ,very short  sighted, the money they are giving

away would be better used on fixing all the problems,this rainy

season I have had less outages ONLY because we have had so little

rain.

regards worgeordie

the blackouts when there is a storm are very short and quick.    I didn't count those at all.  

I had also read the in the PI, Japan or some  country issued hundreds of solar powered water pumps to Filipino farmers it said.  for next year.  that I am not the only one that knows this is a long standing cycle and stuff like why it was we were still studying 1997 (the famous 1997 ENSO.... not the Tum Yung Gung thing!) when 2015-16 hit.  during which I will never forget folks congregated on a local bridge staring for long times at a totally dry tributory coming from the western mountains that is "never" empty.  but was.  and Freund says this is a trend. 

 

thanks for your comment though! yeah, a "we did something for you" when the government needs excuses... next year maybe? 

[WeekendRaider]

so after a few hours of research on my own so far, first big find is a story about Chiangmai University signing a 'framework' to use blockchain technology in managing roof top solar panels at the university.  as part of a "Smart University" program.   March 22, 2019. 

but no luck so far on information about brownouts in rural Maewang and dipping down to 170 volts, instead of the 'normal' 196 to 202 volts during the middle of the day when we can feel so lucky for a few hours in our village.  

[NancyL]

Why don't you just buy a back-up generator and large water storage tank?  That's what we had for our greenhouse-nursery operation in the U.S.  Our mist propagation controllers couldn't operate with low voltage and we couldn't risk losing our entire crop due to power problems, which happened frequently there, too.

[WeekendRaider]

4 hours ago, NancyL said:

Why don't you just buy a back-up generator and large water storage tank?  That's what we had for our greenhouse-nursery operation in the U.S.  Our mist propagation controllers couldn't operate with low voltage and we couldn't risk losing our entire crop due to power problems, which happened frequently there, too.

thank you.

 

wow, you're the gal that usually really nails it.  especially if it has to do with health coverage!  the straight skinny.  bam!

a generator needs fuel.  my thinking is the situation may likely be quite pervasive.   only what you have personal control of, or the village does.... or doesn't have control over.... such as the grid.  

only what I can fix or have simple backups of.  so any kind of fuel is off my list.  that's the straight skinny on ****this****!  it's that my neighbors don't even know we are in daily brownouts.   sometimes you can see a light dim if your pump short cycles... or you pay attention to how your 'paht lomb' runs and notice it is a little funny.  otherwise it's only that I am a bit paranoid I guess and that I have UPS machines that have line in and line out voltage meters.   

[boonrawdcnx]

UPS backup is from the stone ages.
Spend a few hundred thousand and get an inverter and a lithium hybrid storage system which kicks in without delay when the power cuts. Can power your entire house for hours depending on capacity of your batteries.
Or spend around 2 million baht on an off grid solar system and you will be independent from the grid.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[WeekendRaider]

28 minutes ago, boonrawdcnx said:

UPS backup is from the stone ages.
Spend a few hundred thousand and get an inverter and a lithium hybrid storage system which kicks in without delay when the power cuts. Can power your entire house for hours depending on capacity of your batteries.
Or spend around 2 million baht on an off grid solar system and you will be independent from the grid.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

thank you.  I also started rereading some of my solar power books yesterday as I have been delaying it for beter tech in Thailand (dumb) and reread that lithium is way better than lead acid if it is very hot outside.  ambient temps for how long the batteries live otherwise.  but I also should have kept this post more succinct.  it is cutting lum yai trees and bringing a bore hole drilling rig onto the property, when none of my neighbors have anywhere nearly such resources.... that I am having to worry about now.

 

the borewell rig.  

 

not so much the money but 100,000 THB for something the village already supplies.... I don't want to look like a nutcase, maybe I do already or a 'farlang' the only one.... whatever that and cutting trees so it can get in the yard.  

 

I am already way past the point where solar power is a given for us. so yeah, excellent reply.  thanks.   

[NancyL]

15 hours ago, WeekendRaider said:

thank you.

 

wow, you're the gal that usually really nails it.  especially if it has to do with health coverage!  the straight skinny.  bam!

a generator needs fuel.  my thinking is the situation may likely be quite pervasive.   only what you have personal control of, or the village does.... or doesn't have control over.... such as the grid.  

only what I can fix or have simple backups of.  so any kind of fuel is off my list.  that's the straight skinny on ****this****!  it's that my neighbors don't even know we are in daily brownouts.   sometimes you can see a light dim if your pump short cycles... or you pay attention to how your 'paht lomb' runs and notice it is a little funny.  otherwise it's only that I am a bit paranoid I guess and that I have UPS machines that have line in and line out voltage meters.   

Our generators ran off the propane stored in our very big storage tanks and could switch to natural gas supplied by the local utility.  We had access to both.  We weren't planning for an "end of days" scenario, but rather wanted to protect our crop in the case of an unexpected brown or black-out from the local utility.  

 

Incidentally, both Hubby and I have degrees in mechanical engineering with Hubby's Master's Degree in solar energy.  We didn't even consider something as exotic as solar or wind for generating the electricity we'd need in a brown/black-out.  One has to be practical and use existing technology rather than inventing something new when your time is spent keeping a business running. 

[WeekendRaider]

phin nee.  set laaao.

 

once we bring the lumyai fruit in.  a large lumyai is blocking the driveway entrance and has beautiful fruit on it and it's taken care of by my brother-in-law.  his fruit.

a bore well 200 meters down.  solar power wasn't even ever a question at this point.  only if lead acid or not, big deal!  

as for the always automatically Big Question.... will any of the villagers think I'm a crazy farlang?????  they probably won't think that at all it seems so far.  that's a tell for any folks anywhere that don't have chickens running around in your yard.   I have never missed a prediction yet.  pray I am wrong in spades.   I was in Boston in 1977 or so in a blizzard that they called the 82nd out to clear the interstates.  store shelves were cleaned on the first heavy day of snow.  not to be restocked for days.  it could unfold like that.  and no, the temp thing is a metric only.  I mean animal feed and stuff like that.  all plant life has a very limited response range, no matter how we oh so intelligent humans fare.  but sometimes temperature is more than a metric such as right now in July 2019, which is not an ENSO and yet Dr. Mann says we have a 50% chance July 2019 is the hottest global month average temperature in recorded human history.  when they figure that out in a few weeks.  so I yimmer yammered about the Thai Baht for 10 or 15 years.  and the climate thing for 5.  that's it.  that's not fun at all.  PHIN NEEE.  SET LAOOO.  good luck to anyone who gets this far in my stupid post..... that some one will say is a crazy rant.  we shall see soon enough I believe.  

[XLance]

I live in MaeWang as well (T. Thung Pi) at the end of an electric line (~1km from the transformer, voltage drop is not pretty). I got used to the 170 volt and cope with it, ...and farmers hitting all the lines with their longan trucks...and farmers feeding the public electric line with a generator during blackout (or not..) ...and farmers swapping neutral and live on the public line as well..., I did everything I can to protect my own line but well, it has its limits ???? and people in the village have no clue what I'm complaining about (hence why it doesn't bother them if neutral is suddenly hot).

 

Back up for <150V is currently a generator but I will eventually switch full solar in a couple of years. I live in the foothills and have no hope it will improve in the foreseeable future.