2 hours ago, superal said:

Looks like a professional installation . Are you an electrician ? Also what appliances can your solar system run and do you have storage batteries for night time use ?

No I'm not an electrician.  I confess to having no previous experience of solar systems and a fairly basic knowledge of electrical systems dating back to my days at Coventry Polytechnic some 50 plus years ago.  In fact, I would happily describe myself as a total nurd when it comes to solar systems.  That said, DIY seems to be in my DNA.

 

The inspiration for my project came from @Crossy original thread "How about a solar car port on a budget" (see link below), plus a lot of support from the forum members and considerable additional research on the web.  I think that the real motivation for me was that at the age of 74, designing, installing and commissioning a grid tied solar system, albeit a small one, was a great challenge, and I love a challenge.  It also helped to overcome the boredom created by the restriction on movement caused by Covid at the time.

 

My wife and I are somewhat conservative users of electricity.  Our bills prior to installing the system were around 1,000 THB a month.  As mentioned in my post above, the aim of the system was to reduce our electric bills by 75% and over the past year the system seems to be achieving this comfortably.

 

We have the following appliances:  2 x ACs (living room & bedroom) which are only used for a short periods of time when the humidity level goes above 80% - we tend to prefer fans:  Fridge/freezer: Front loader washing m/c: Microwave: 55in LCD TV: 3kW water heater in the shower room: LEDs lights in all rooms.

 

The system is grid tied, so its difficult to accurately say which appliances are running off the system during the day, obviously they are not all running at the same time.  I haven't considered installing ESS as this would involve a very substantial cost (batteries and hybrid inverter).  Apart from the cost factor, such a system is well above my 'paygrade' ????.

 

 

On 9/28/2022 at 9:37 AM, BritManToo said:

That would be the prices for an installation with an approved installer and approved equipment. Which is why hardly any Thais bother as the 'kickbacks' increase the install price by x5. 

 

Prawitt says he wants to make it cheaper and easier.

I'd say removing the corporate greed and corruption would be the way to do that.

Yes, and that's the whole point in commenting the facts from the article...

On 9/28/2022 at 3:51 PM, superal said:

Do you have battery storage for the evenings ? Can you run an air-con from your system ? What was the total outlay for your solar system ? Did you install it yourself ?  Solar energy make sense in a country like Thailand where there is plenty of sun . Sorry for all the questions but the concept makes dividends over time  which is appealing .  

There are two batteries, one Lead Acid and one NMC. I run the complete company with all the machines on the system and may air-cons too. I installed everything by myself, as it is an off-grid system.  You can start with a small off-grid system with an inverter that is Parallel compatible so you can extend the system if you need more capacity.