Acronyms and Abbreviations as used in energy discussions

[Crossy]

A couple of members have been confused by the acronyms that get banded about during discussions on this forum.

 

Here are some to get you started, please feel free to add ones I've missed.

 

BMS = Battery Management System - electronics to protect your batteries from over / under charging - essential when using lithium based batteries.

ESS = Energy Storage System (battery, usually incorporating some form of BMS)

FLA = Flooded Lead Acid (battery)

GTI = Grid Tie Inverter 

kWh = Kilowatt hour (or unit on your power bill) - energy measurement equal to 3.6MJ (Mega Joules)

kWP = Kilowatt photovoltaic (talking abour solar panels)

LiFePO4 = Lithium, Iron, Phosphate (battery)

MEA = Metropolitan Electricity Authority - covers Greater Bangkok - supply voltage nominally 230V 50Hz

MPPT = Maximum Power Point Tracking - talking about solar charge controllers

PEA = Provincial Electricity Authority - covers all of Thailand except Bangkok - supply voltage nominally 220V 50Hz

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation - another, less efficient but cheaper solar charge controller

ROI = Return on Investment - Basically the length of time for an investment (say your solar) needs to operate before the savings it makes exceed the cost of the system.

SLA = Sealed Lead Acid (battery)

VRLA = Valve Regulated Lead Acid (Battery)

 

SWMBO - She Who Must Be Obeyed - Wife / Significant Other - From the 1965 movie "She" starring Ursula Andress ????????

TLA - Three Letter Abbreviation / Acronym

TEOTWAWKI - The End Of The World As We Know It

[MJCM]

Thx @Crossy

 

That makes it a lot clearer.

 

In my case the last one is the most important one because she will have the finally say if I can get my kwP and ESS with BMS and connect to the PEA and create some kWh ????

[KannikaP]

Just hate these TLAs

[Crossy]

5 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

Just hate these TLAs

 

Added

[Crossy]

2 hours ago, KannikaP said:

Just hate these TLAs

 

So did I at one time, but for very different reasons.

 

Totally off topic anecdote.

 

In the dark and distant past the RN used a piece of kit called "TLA" a telegraph literaliser. What it did was took the message plaintext and coverted it into garbage groups of 5 letters and numbers (we've probably all seen this format in war films) these groups then went to the encryption system to be converted into different groups of 5 characters which the radio operator then sent.

 

Thing is, this was all done using hardware logic, no microprocessors and software here, and any fault in the logic would result in garbage groups of 5 characters (just the wrong 5 characters).

 

One of my jobs was to "knife and fork" diagnose and fix these faults.

 

Of course very often the first we knew about a literaliser fault was when a receipient reported garbled messages by which time "sparks" could well have sent a lot of junk.

 

The operator was supposed to use a message that produced a known output and verify that output before using the beast, but often "forgot".

 

I still remember how the ruddy thing worked, but I'd probably have to kill you if I told you.

 

[MJCM]

7 minutes ago, Crossy said:

I still remember how the ruddy thing worked, but I'd probably have to kill you if I told you.

Is it just me but after reading this last sentence I want to know more about it

[KhunLA]

Once understand the TLAs, now try wrapping your head around trying to use them.  Good luck, along with finding out what you appliance runs at, or peak draw to start up.  

https://amigoenergy.com/complete-guide-understanding-kilowatts/

 

Easier way to find out what you need, and it's right in front of you, barring a separate system for specific use, such as water pump.

 

Simply look at you PEA bill / recept, and units used.  Decide what part of that is daytime vs nighttime use, and you can get a ballpark idea how large or small a system you need.  AC use will be you biggest draw, along with inverter vs non inverter.

 

Sample bill, current units highlighted, and history of past use:

 

 

 

 

[007 RED]

4 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Snip....

 

Easier way to find out what you need, and it's right in front of you, barring a separate system for specific use, such as water pump.

 

Simply look at you PEA bill / recept, and units used.  Decide what part of that is daytime vs nighttime use, and you can get a ballpark idea how large or small a system you need.  AC use will be you biggest draw, along with inverter vs non inverter.

 

Snip.....

Finding out how many units we were using was the one of the problems that I faced when I initially considered a small scale GTI system.

 

I was aware that the meter reader normally puts our electric bill into the mailbox each month.  However, either my better half, or I, WPB the bills without really taking any notice of the figures they contain as we pay our utility bills by ‘direct debit’ from a specific bank account.

 

From the bank book, I could see how much we had been paying every month, but I had no real idea how many units of electricity we were actually using.  Something that is essential to know if I was going to determine the size of the GTI solar system that we might be considering.

 

So, in order to establish our electrical usage for the previous 12 months, my wife and I popped into our local PEA office and asked them if they would be kind enough to provide us with details of our usage.  At first we were met with blank looks, but after lots of nice smiles and pleas we were referred to a supervisor who asked lots of questions as to why we would want such information.  We told her (a little porky) that we thought that the bank may have been over charging us and we wanted the information to check against.  She (fell for) accepted our explanation and a few minutes later produced a nice printout itemising our monthly usage in terms of: - meter reading date and time; current & previous meter readings; number units used; cost.

 

Based upon the data provided by our local PEA I was able to determine our average and maximum monthly usage which then formed the basis for the sizing of our proposed GTI solar panel project.

 

Since that visit some 2 years ago I have been careful to retrieve our bill from the letter box so that I can continue to monitor our usage.

[KhunLA]

For those wanting to save themselves a trip to the office for history report, this 'may' help.

https://www.pea.co.th/en/e-Service/Meter-Reading-History

[Crossy]

5 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

For those wanting to save themselves a trip to the office for history report, this 'may' help.

https://www.pea.co.th/en/e-Service/Meter-Reading-History

 

Yeah, the PEA App also goes back the same distance (to March 2020 at present).

[MJCM]

I am keeping my own usage data with a simple Spreadsheet

 

 

[Crossy]

5 minutes ago, MJCM said:

I am keeping my own usage data with a simple Spreadsheet

 

Yeah, my "simple spreadsheet" has got somewhat out of hand with graphs and trends and all sorts of useless data ???? 

[KhunLA]

If wanting find out units per month, could do a reverse calculation.  Take your bill total, and divide by 4.25, and that will give you a ballpark monthly unit usage.

 

You can play with their 'bill calculator' if wanting to narrow it down ... ????

https://eservice.pea.co.th/EstimateBill/#

 

The bill I posted, usage vs charge and using 4.25 was only 10 units off.

506 = ฿2110 ... actually bill

฿2110 ÷ 4.25 = 496 units ... guesstimate 

[MJCM]

28 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

If wanting find out units per month, could do a reverse calculation.  Take your bill total, and divide by 4.25,

Good one @KhunLA

 

In case someone is wondering why the 4,25 (I was ???? ) it's the average THB price per Unit @KhunLA is paying!

 

We are in the high 3 and low 4 range! (the more you use the more you pay and the higher the price per unit)

[Muhendis]

VRLA = Valve Regulated Lead Acid (Battery)

[Muhendis]

This one may not get on the list

 

POETS Day = Friday (Pee of Early Tomorrows Saturday)