Resort Owner Shocked As Power Bill Soars Over 700,000 Baht

[webfact]

 

by TNR Staff

 

THE owner of a resort in Rayong who posted a TikTok video complaining about the monthly electricity bill having climbed over 700,000 baht from less than 500,000 baht previously attracted a lot of comments, Naewna newspaper said today (Apr. 21).

 

In the video Amornphan Villa Resort owner said that in the 40 years of operation the monthly power bill had never exceeded 500,000 baht but this month it skyrocketed to 711,470.60 baht despite electricity and air-conditioner usage being the same as before.

 

This TikTok video attracted a lot of comments, for example one person asked with the power bill having risen so high will room rates likewise go up.

 

Another person who commented that electricity was expensive, is expensive and will continue to be expensive also mentioned that he lived alone but the power bill has gone up from 800 baht a month to 3,200 baht – with this high amount being enough to buy a car on instalments.

 

Full story: https://thainewsroom.com/2023/04/21/resort-owner-shocked-as-power-bill-soars-over-700000-baht/

 

-- © Copyright  THAI NEWSROOM 2023-04-22

 

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[thaibeachlovers]

Time to go solar then. No excuse in a country with so much sunlight for not doing so.

I'll bet his rooms all have airconditioners, and solar would work for them during the day.

 

Of course he could go for the option that many resorts used when I was staying on beaches and only have power in the evening, and cold water showers.

[MJCM]

20 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Time to go solar then.

For Solar to cover a leccy bill of 700k, that would require a major investment.

 

I think @Crossy could give a good estimate on how much solar would be required to cover this ????

[JensenZ]

This lady doesn't understand how air conditioners work. My bill increased by 35% from last month to this month. The temperatures this month have been the hottest I can remember. It doesn't matter how much you use the air conditioners, but how much work is required of them - that is, how many degrees they need to cool. If she has some faulty, dirty or inefficient air conditioners in which the compressors are running full time or most of the time, that will increase the cost of running them by a huge amount. Maybe some of the guests have them set to 18C (or the lowest settings), so the compressors are running full time, maybe with doors and/or windows open.

 

It doesn't help that the unit charge has increased this year. She needs to find some way to control how they are used too. Maybe some guests have left them running when they go out.

[Crossy]

39 minutes ago, MJCM said:

For Solar to cover a leccy bill of 700k, that would require a major investment.

 

I think @Crossy could give a good estimate on how much solar would be required to cover this ????

 

700k Baht would be about 150k units or 5000 units per day! Finger in the air would need nigh on 1.8MW of solar!

 

This is serious solar-farm stuff, probably 2 rai of space. Plenty of commercial roof systems in Thailand that big.

 

Our local Global House could probably help ???? 

 

 

Or something a little more affordable.

 

[ikke1959]

I think normal with high temperatures, many holidays, so a lot of airco used by the resort... It is a part of the business, nothing is always the the same and sometimes there is increase in costs. Time to think about renovation or investments, surely after 40 years 

[MJCM]

 

 

21 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

This lady doesn't understand how air conditioners work. My bill increased by 35% from last month to this month. The temperatures this month have been the hottest I can remember. It doesn't matter how much you use the air conditioners, but how much work is required of them - that is, how many degrees they need to cool. If she has some faulty, dirty or inefficient air conditioners in which the compressors are running full time or most of the time, that will increase the cost of running them by a huge amount. Maybe some of the guests have them set to 18C (or the lowest settings), so the compressors are running full time, maybe with doors and/or windows open.

 

Spot on.

 

Last month we stayed in a Hotel in Pattaya and to get the room cool a bit we had to set the temperature to 18c on the air con, and even then the temperature in the room was so so. In comparison we set the air con in our house to 27c first and then later when we goto sleep change it to 28c. So the air con in the Hotel is clearly in need of some maintenance / replacement.

 

Re: Replacement.

 

When I bought my Condo, after a while we replaced the air con in the bed room to an Inverter one and the result was that the following electricity Bill was less then half.

 

21 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

It doesn't help that the unit charge has increased this year. She needs to find some way to control how they are used too. Maybe some guests have left them running when they go out.

The hotel we stayed in had however one of those device that will cut the power when you leave the room and take your room key with you so leaving the air con running was not possible

[MJCM]

23 minutes ago, Crossy said:

Finger in the air would need nigh on 1.8MW of solar!

So 1.8MW = 1.800.000W

 

Let's assume A Solar panels is approx 500W, so that would already 1.8MW / 500 = 3600 Panels.

 

1 panel approx 4500 THB = 3600 * 4500 THB = 16.200.000 THB just for the Panels.

 

WOW

[JensenZ]

11 minutes ago, MJCM said:

 

 

Spot on.

 

Last month we stayed in a Hotel in Pattaya and to get the room cool a bit we had to set the temperature to 18c on the air con, and even then the temperature in the room was so so. In comparison we set the air con in our house to 27c first and then later when we goto sleep change it to 28c. So the air con in the Hotel is clearly in need of some maintenance / replacement.

 

Re: Replacement.

 

When I bought my Condo, after a while we replaced the air con in the bed room to an Inverter one and the result was that the following electricity Bill was less then half.

 

The hotel we stayed in had however one of those device that will cut the power when you leave the room and take your room key with you so leaving the air con running was not possible

I run my aircon nearly the same as you... 26 (awake) to 27 (when sleeping). My wife prefers 28C all the time in her room. A good unit will drop the humidity fast, so you can feel comfortable at higher settings. I got new Daikin inverter units installed last year and it saved me roughly 1000 baht per month... and that's with running them for longer each day.

 

[ezzra]

The article doesn't say what electricity wastage measures the hotel has, is a gust go out and leaves lights and AC turned on than that could be one of the problems.

[MJCM]

3 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

got new Daikin inverter units installed last year and it saved me roughly 1000 baht per month... and that's with running them for longer each day.

Same here, Daikin FTKM's we have. They are a bit expensive to buy bit they will save you a lot of money in the long run

[JensenZ]

3 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Same here, Daikin FTKM's we have. They are a bit expensive to buy bit they will save you a lot of money in the long run

Same units exactly, 15 BTU. It has saved me over 12,000 baht in one year, but that's not all. They are so efficient and quiet, and drop the temperature of a hot room very fast... and I run my fan at the lowest setting. The problem is, they are so quiet I sometimes forget to turn them off when not needed. I also use the sensor that slows them down abit if no one is in the room (raises the temp by a degree).

[ChipButty]

There is only one sure fire way and that is to charge extra for electric, You watch the guest turn it off then, 

Tourist just don't get it they will have the A/C running with all the windows and doors open, I even tell them the garden doesn't need cooling down they are tropical plants.

Also getting them to turn it off when they go out is another problem that is just complete waste, there is a few things you can do, install a keycard system so when they take the card out the electric goes off.

These multi billion dollar A/C companies could help by designing a motion detector if no movement it goes of after 15 minutes, I did write to LG about it, No they don't have, 

Maintenance of the A/C unit is important but Im afraid it's not high on the agenda with Thai's as long as it's still running that's ok, 

Certain nationalities which I've noticed have the place like a fridge.

[MJCM]

7 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

There is only one sure fire way and that is to charge extra for electric, You watch the guest turn it off then, 

Easy solution for that but only works when they leave the room but not for leaving the doors or windows open and keep the air con running

 

 

 

[itsari]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Time to go solar then. No excuse in a country with so much sunlight for not doing so.

I'll bet his rooms all have airconditioners, and solar would work for them during the day.

 

Of course he could go for the option that many resorts used when I was staying on beaches and only have power in the evening, and cold water showers.

Solar would not help as the investment required would outweigh any savings for some years .

 

[ChipButty]

4 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Easy solution for that but only works when they leave the room but not for leaving the doors or windows open and keep the air con running

 

 

 

I'm aware of them but you have to have one that is compatible with the door lock, with that one they can leave it in and go out, The other thing I did see was door sensors that sound off an alarm when left open how good they are I don't know.

[itsari]

The price increase in electricity is being piled onto the large users of electricity .

With an election coming up i can understand the motive why small users are not seeing any dramatic price increases .

 

[Thailand]

And as mentioned the hottest month of the year. Both of my Thai neighbours asked me if our bill had gone up from last month, they have never done that before.

All three of us saw increases of over 30% from the previous month. I had anticipated it as the wife turns on aircons for most of the day and night when it is this hot. I guess my neighbours did

similar but did not expect such an increase.

For the record my bill was almost twice the neighbours bills combined. ????

[RichardColeman]

30 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

There is only one sure fire way and that is to charge extra for electric, You watch the guest turn it off then, 

That's all well and dandy, but they would have to ensure there is about 3 fans in every room prior to do that

[Henryford]

35 minutes ago, MJCM said:

Easy solution for that but only works when they leave the room but not for leaving the doors or windows open and keep the air con running

 

 

 

I just stayed in a hotel in Phuket. They only gave you one key, like the one above, so when you went out the electricity was off.

[ChrisY1]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Time to go solar then. No excuse in a country with so much sunlight for not doing so.

I'll bet his rooms all have airconditioners, and solar would work for them during the day.

 

Of course he could go for the option that many resorts used when I was staying on beaches and only have power in the evening, and cold water showers.

There are now available here, 48v DC split air conditioners..up to 24000btus…not so cheap at around Thb75K, but no big scares at this time of the year.

[redwood1]

48 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

There is only one sure fire way and that is to charge extra for electric, You watch the guest turn it off then, 

Tourist just don't get it they will have the A/C running with all the windows and doors open, I even tell them the garden doesn't need cooling down they are tropical plants.

Also getting them to turn it off when they go out is another problem that is just complete waste, there is a few things you can do, install a keycard system so when they take the card out the electric goes off.

These multi billion dollar A/C companies could help by designing a motion detector if no movement it goes of after 15 minutes, I did write to LG about it, No they don't have, 

Maintenance of the A/C unit is important but Im afraid it's not high on the agenda with Thai's as long as it's still running that's ok, 

Certain nationalities which I've noticed have the place like a fridge.

Yes the Keycard to run the aircon is a must........Number one best thing to do...

[MJCM]

9 minutes ago, ChrisY1 said:

There are now available here, 48v DC split air conditioners..up to 24000btus…not so cheap at around Thb75K, but no big scares at this time of the year.

Don't forget to add Batteries ($$$) else you will only have air con running during the day ????

[redwood1]

How about just having a modest number of solar panels that only covered SOME of the power useage and only during the day.....A whole lot less batteries would be needed and it would be way cheaper to build...

[MJCM]

9 minutes ago, redwood1 said:

How about just having a modest number of solar panels that only covered SOME of the power useage and only during the day.....A whole lot less batteries would be needed and it would be way cheaper to build...

But to offset a Leccy Bill of 700k THB that would still need a major investment.

 

Make it 25% only so  lets say 700.000 / 4 = 175.000 THB leccy bill

 

(Rough calculation)  @Crossy please correct me if I am wrong)

 

That would require approx 450.000W of Panels.

 

Let's assume 1 Panel = 500W = 450.000W / 500W = 900 Panels

 

Let's assume 1 Panel costs 4500 THB = 900 * 4500 = 4.050.000 THB (and that is for the panels alone thus not including labour, inverters, cables, mounting brackets etc etc etc etc) (adding batteries to store electricity to that would double or triple that amount)

 

[ChipButty]

Another thing you can try which I did for a friend some years ago, He had 4 bungalows for rent and it was the same story, We put a master switch outside the door so everything went off except the fridge, 

Make sure you tell the guest what it's for, it did help, 

[Crossy]

Our "usage" remains pretty constant, but the actual energy consumption has whizzed up recently: -

 

 

The red column is our total consumption, up 30% since February. This is purely from A/C and freezers working harder during the warm weather.

 

[Dante99]

1 hour ago, ChipButty said:

These multi billion dollar A/C companies could help by designing a motion detector if no movement it goes of after 15 minutes, I did write to LG about it, No they don't have, 

Such motion detector switches are easily available, why not just put them in instead of deleted on about the OEMs?

[ChipButty]

9 minutes ago, Dante99 said:

Such motion detector switches are easily available, why not just put them in instead of deleted on about the OEMs?

What?

[Crossy]

Occupancy sensors work pretty well 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/220v-800w-microwave-sensor-pir-occupancy-body-motion-detector-light-switch-i2653378457-s9541413294.html

To work an A/C this one would need a contactor, but not difficult or expensive.

 

They do have some downsides: -

Many moons ago an engineering company decided that they could save on energy by fitting occupancy sensors in the lavatories. These would turn out the lights when nobody was in there.

Unfortunately, the time out in the men's room was just a little too short and sometimes the lights went out when you were in a stall.

The solution was to open the stall door and wave at the sensor.

All fine and dandy until one fateful day the elderly lady cleaner happened to walk in just as a young engineer was waving at the sensor with his trousers round his ankles.

The cleaner survived the experience and the sensors were disabled.

 

I wonder who that young engineer was