PEA and Solar how low can you go?

[MJCM]

@BritManToo

 

Our Meter reader also comes on Sundays

 

Oct 16th 2022 - Sunday

Jan 16th 2022 - Sunday

[Muhendis]

I feel so inadequate now.

I've no idea when my meter man/woman comes.

[MJCM]

9 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

I feel so inadequate now.

I've no idea when my meter man/woman comes.

You don't have to, because do you ever get a PEA Bill with a higher usage then 1??

 

Edit: The Guys (who export) they must because else we will get on of those non back spinning Meters

Edited January 25, 2023 by MJCM
Forgot something

[Muhendis]

4 minutes ago, MJCM said:

You don't have to, because do you ever get a PEA Bill with a higher usage then 1??

Well spotted that man, but sometimes I do get loads of units to pay for.

It depends if I need to run my mini rice mill or not.

I seem to recall once last year I had a really shocking bill of almost 200 Baht ☹️

[MJCM]

1 hour ago, Muhendis said:

Well spotted that man, but sometimes I do get loads of units to pay for.

It depends if I need to run my mini rice mill or not.

I seem to recall once last year I had a really shocking bill of almost 200 Baht ☹️

Just wondering, did the PEA also replace your meter as they did with @Bandersnatch because they thought it was faulty (showed zero units months on end)?

[Muhendis]

37 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Just wondering, did the PEA also replace your meter as they did with @Bandersnatch because they thought it was faulty (showed zero units months on end)?

No they didn't 

Some years ago when I had a 1kM temporary supply, I shared my line with a new neighbour who paid the bill. I was on solar 100% at that time.

Along came the monks and the Amphur head man and hooked into my meter for a bit of loud music. They were having a dedication party for a newly built Budhist shed just down the road from my house.

The Amphur head man nominated his best village electrical engineer to do the hookup.

This wonderman of electricity also swapped my live and neutral so connecting live to my ground through 1kM of 25mm² aluminium cable. The cable got warm and the meter spun round quite merrily racking up a 4k Baht bill for the day. My new neighbour didn't 'arf complain to the PEA about that so they sent a posse of engineers round to inspect the cable from the meter through the trees to my house. We had quite a discussion at the time about the ease of access to my meter and  all sorts of things solar. So PEA were very much aware of the non-use of the meter (except for my neighbour). 

The Amphur head man was persuaded to pay that bill and promptly sent his electrician (Mr. Wonderman) to correct his mistake.

Of course, this happened over a week or three so in correcting his mistake he didn't check first to see if I had already done so. You should all be ahead of me by now. I had already corrected this swapped wire problem so when the wonderman came he effectively did the same again. That was another 4k Baht bill only this time the Amphur head said it was not his problem so we had to sort it out ourselves.

The upshot of this story is that PEA office were now intimately aware of my solar activities so are quite content to leave me and my rarely used meter in peace.

By the way, I have had my proper supply for a few years now but I had to wait almost 8 years to get it.

Such is the speed of progress.

[Crossy]

32 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

Such is the speed of progress.

 

And of the PEA of course

 

Our only mention of "solar" to PEA was when we first thought about it.

 

The FiT was pitiful at the time (it's not much better now) and the local PEA Boss Man said we could "absolutely not spin the meter backwards".

 

On our way out he also said (very quietly) "don't let the meter reader see it going backwards", so we are doing just that

[Muhendis]

32 minutes ago, Crossy said:

The FiT was pitiful at the time (it's not much better now) and the local PEA Boss Man said we could "absolutely not spin the meter backwards".

The PEA eng. was quite interested in my system and the discussion covered FiT at which point we both had a good laugh and the conversation moved on.

[3STTW]

14 hours ago, Crossy said:

I'm interested by your note about having a 28-day billing cycle and getting 13 bills per year. Our man comes on roughly the same day each month (the 18th or 19th, except February when he comes on the 16th) we definitely only get 12 bills each year.

I just checked the last 3 months of PEA bills and the dates were:

Nov - 25th

Dec - 23rd

Jan - 20th

 

All the other houses on the estate get their bills on the same day, so I'm not alone. It doesn't really matter - other than the fact that my actual monthly usage is more than I'd previously calculated back when I was trying to justify solar.

[sidgy]

Our meter reading is always the 5th of the month, in the morning. The only exception was when i was caught out when he arrived a day early, mid afternoon when we max producing. The 5th was a holiday, cant remember what for but luckily he didn't notice/didn't report the backwards spinning meter 

[MrJ2U]

On 10/1/2022 at 8:04 AM, Crossy said:

My records don't go back to before we had solar but our bills were regularly 5-6k Baht per month. Now we are around 1k or less.

That's sounds so good. 

 

I'd be ecstatic to see a 1,000 baht bill. 

 

I'm kicking myself for not installing solar panels ages ago.   Now just too expensive for us at the moment. 

[Crossy]

5 hours ago, MrJ2U said:

That's sounds so good. 

I'd be ecstatic to see a 1,000 baht bill. 

I'm kicking myself for not installing solar panels ages ago.   Now just too expensive for us at the moment. 

 

Yeah, the sweet-spot for panels was the back-end of 2021. I got 12 x 340W panels from Global House in September 2021 for 2,890 Baht a pop. I should have bought more then; similar panels are around 3,600 Baht now ???? 

 

As always, hindsight is 20-20.

 

 

[BritManToo]

On 10/1/2022 at 8:04 AM, Crossy said:

My records don't go back to before we had solar but our bills were regularly 5-6k Baht per month. Now we are around 1k or less.

Today's bill was a massive 340bht for 70 units. (60bht up on last month)

[007 RED]

Ops.... Official meter reading on the 16th was 8172.... Self-meter reading this morning 26th = 8160. ????

 

According to the monitoring facility, our small scale GTI system has generated 74 units during the past 10 days.

 

Obviously with the spate of reasonable sunshine recently, the system has been producing more than we have been using, so now we have a negative meter reading which is definitely something that I would not want our local PEA to become aware of. 

 

As a result my system is taking a 'forced holiday' for a few days to allow the meter to return into positive numbers.  Our next official meter reading next month is on, or about the 13th, so time to rectify the situation.  Good job that I check the PEA meter every so often.

[carlyai]

'Lovely Reta meter maid ....'

[Crossy]

9 hours ago, carlyai said:

'Lovely Reta meter maid ....'

 

Ours is definitely a fellah, but what he does in his off time ...

[Crossy]

Of course, we are in "oops" territory too.

 

The man came on the 19th and read 14,951kWh, I just read the meter 14,928kWh so we are -23kWh

 

I have to read the meter early in the morning as it's located in the middle of a restaurant (not ours) and one gets strange looks from diners if the place is open.

 

The cool weather (no A/C needed) and the pool being out of action (no pump running) are major contributary factors.

 

The man comes next on the 16th of February so there's enough time to correct the issue (or for the weather to correct it for me) ???? 

[MJCM]

38 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Of course, we are in "oops" territory too.

Same here, meter read was 55 we are now at 46 with our Simple Setup.

 

I want to shutdown the GTi's but SWMBO says give it another few days   (Wants to go lower then last month (which was 58 units))

 

We check the meter daily, my wife cooks food for the monks almost every day and the monks walk past the house (early morning),  thus she then also looks at the meter. On the days she doesn't get up early, I have to do the walking ????

 

[MJCM]

GTi's have been shutdown in our case, they won't produce much anyway today as it's overcast (cold weather coming again???)

 

Will keep monitoring the meter and when it goes to high (prediction over 60 units) then we will turn them on again, but for now we want the meter to go above 55. (which is the units when the meter was last read)

[KhunLA]

2kW used this billing cycle, read this AM, ฿6.49 + BS

Previous bills at rental, using PEA 600-700kW,

was ฿3000-฿3500k a month.

 

Finally broke 600 kW with solar use this 'billing cycle'

Though that did require 4 out & abouts w/EV, locally. 

 

103 kW the last few days of Dec

520 kW this month

Edited January 28, 2023 by KhunLA

[007 RED]

As anticipated, the meter reader came this afternoon and posted the lowest bill into our post box since I installed our small scale solar system onto the car port roof some 16 months ago.

 

Thanks to some decent sunshine during the past 28 days, our little system has managed to generate 184 units, which has meant that we only needed to purchase 26 units from our local PEA in order to meet our household needs during the current billing month.

 

 

It will be seen from the above graph, the system didn't generate anything on the 27 and 28 January.  This was because of the good sunshine, the system was producing far more than we were using and as a result our meter reading was in 'substantial negative territory'.  So just to be safe I turned the system off for a couple of days.

 

As will be seen from the above PEA bill, we only need to purchase the grand total of 26, which has cost us 70.82 THB.  As mentioned earlier, this is the lowest bill we've had since I installed the system 16 months ago.

 

Also, I note that for some unknown reason, we seem to have two FT discounts of -23.93 THB and -46.28 THB.  I thought that the FT discount had been discontinued.... Not that I'm complaining.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by 007 RED

[Crossy]

Hmmmm, if I'm reading it right looks like you also got the "old" FT discount like @MJCMreported.

 

I wonder if there was a policy change that nobody has heard about?

 

And what is the -46.28 "FT" discount, it mentions EDIT May January 2023? Backdated "correction" from when the full FT was charged last month perhaps?

[MJCM]

24 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

I wonder if there was a policy change that nobody has heard about?

 

And what is the -46.28 "FT" discount, it mentions May 2023? Backdated "correction" from when the full FT was charged last month perhaps?

I was wondering about that as well, will know for sure tmrw as then the BILL shows up in the PEA APP what I have to pay.

 

But I guess you are right about the "backdate correction"

 

So we got a Double Discount!

Edited February 13, 2023 by MJCM
Forgot the word "APP"

[MJCM]

31 minutes ago, Crossy said:

it mentions May 2023?

Nope your Thai is a bit rusty it's Mokkarah / January ????

[Crossy]

53 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Nope your Thai is a bit rusty it's Mokkarah / January ????

 

Nah, my Google Lens (or more likely my brain) is fogged ????

[MJCM]

15 hours ago, MJCM said:

I was wondering about that as well, will know for sure tmrw as then the BILL shows up in the PEA APP what I have to pay.

 

But I guess you are right about the "backdate correction"

 

So we got a Double Discount!

Just checked the PEA app (the bill shows up in there the day after the meter reader arrived) and the amount you have to pay @007 RED is that 2nd amount thus the 70.82 amount. So indeed a Double Discount for us!

 

 

[Crossy]

Our man came as predicted at 7.00AM.

 

[MJCM]

6 hours ago, Crossy said:

Our man came as predicted at 7.00AM.

 

Double discount as well. Amount to pay 372.42 Thb for 133 units thus an average price of approx 2,8 Thb per unit ????????

[KhunLA]

????????????

[BritManToo]

Double discount for me as well, this month my bill is 166bht.