Can you recommend a good solar panel installation company?

[cmike]

We live in a 5 storey house of about 1300 sq meters.  (5 brothers and sisters. Each family on 1 floor)

The main appliances are:

6 fridges

8 aircons (running at the same time)

4 electric ovens

4 computers running constantly

Total electric consumption approx 3,000 kWh (approx 13 - 14,000 Baht) per month.

At the moment the aircons run mostly in the evenings and nights, but as we are all slowly retiring, I can imagine the day usage would increase,

 

We enquired at one company and they say we need a 10 kw installation and the price is about 400K baht.

 

Would 10Kw meet our needs?

Does anyone recommend any specific companies?

[Crossy]

OK 3,000kWh per month = Roughly 100kWh per day (ouch)!

 

To generate all that you are looking at 40kW of solar! 

 

10kW would put a significant dent in your bill of course.

 

Did your contractor indicate just what your 400k Baht would give you equipment wise?

[lom]

6 hours ago, Crossy said:

To generate all that you are looking at 40kW of solar! 

We have 14KW of panels, a 12KW inverter and 30KWh of batteries which covers 98% of our power usage which  is 1500KWh/month.

That is for 3 modern fridges, 1 freezer box, 5 Daikin 18000 btu inverter AC's whereof 2 are running 24/7 and the other 3 running night time only, all set to 27° C.  Total cost for the solar was around 500.000 baht and estimated 6 years before ROI.

 

 

[NativeBob]

Maybe offtopick, but:

five floors running aircons "independently" - maybe you should consider central air conditioning like in hotels? Single powerful compressor instead of 5? 

Second: invite some expert from insulation company to fix leakage of cold air? You're not conditioning air around your house, right?

Third: Electric ovens. Its a luxury, shouldn't use in Thailand. Use gas instead.

Sorry @cmike, but that's where I would start. 

[lom]

16 minutes ago, NativeBob said:

Third: Electric ovens. Its a luxury, shouldn't use in Thailand. Use gas instead.

Electric cooking is free, cooking gas is not.

[NativeBob]

4 minutes ago, lom said:

Electric cooking is free, cooking gas is not.

according to my experience this statement is false

[SingAPorn]

With solar energy, electric runned and plugged appliances are free. Seems quite obvious. Never heard of gas operated appliances that run on solar.🤣

[cmike]

19 hours ago, Crossy said:

OK 3,000kWh per month = Roughly 100kWh per day (ouch)!

 

To generate all that you are looking at 40kW of solar! 

 

10kW would put a significant dent in your bill of course.

 

Did your contractor indicate just what your 400k Baht would give you equipment wise?

 

Uhm yes, but I don't really undertsand much of it. 

I just think i was solar panels to cover the daily usage ( he said 10kWh) . No battery.

 

We have another contractor coming today.

 

Yes, 100 kWh per day sounds right. The nephew living alone has 3 air conditioners on 24/7. We have metres on each "condo" and his share is something like 600 kWh per month and he doesn't even want to be included in the solar panels. We are asking the contracter if that is possible.

[cmike]

12 hours ago, NativeBob said:

Maybe offtopick, but:

five floors running aircons "independently" - maybe you should consider central air conditioning like in hotels? Single powerful compressor instead of 5? 

Second: invite some expert from insulation company to fix leakage of cold air? You're not conditioning air around your house, right?

Third: Electric ovens. Its a luxury, shouldn't use in Thailand. Use gas instead.

Sorry @cmike, but that's where I would start. 

 

The house was built to high standards ( well known construction company) just 5 years ago, so no leaks. 

Yes, I agree electric ovens are a luxury, but the whole family agreed that it was safer than having gas.

 

[Pink7]

10 hours ago, SingAPorn said:

With solar energy, electric runned and plugged appliances are free. Seems quite obvious. Never heard of gas operated appliances that run on solar.🤣

Even I have solar i must admit that we still use gas for cooking. Most my life I used electric stoves but after get used to gas for cooking its not easy turn back to electric. I love how fast it is to fire up and ready to cook.

 

Pink

[lom]

1 hour ago, Pink7 said:

Even I have solar i must admit that we still use gas for cooking. Most my life I used electric stoves but after get used to gas for cooking its not easy turn back to electric.

My big family has learnt to get back to electric for boiling (eggs,fish,vegetables, and such) but they use gas for frying.

They are actually great at saving to our electricity bill by using higher current drawing appliances during daytime when we

have more solar energy than we can use.

[bluejets]

On 2/28/2024 at 9:39 PM, lom said:

Electric cooking is free, cooking gas is not.

As one has already noted, not the run-of-the-mill result considering what the cost is dust to dust.

What you fail to recognise ( why I don't know as it is so obvious) is the initial set up costs.

Then come any repair/ maintenance/ replacement costs.

Then, which will probably come as a real surprise to you, the future cost of disposing of any spent / worn out/ no longer operational sections of the installation. 

Even now there are countries with stockpiles of used buggered solar panels with no idea where to dispose of them. One can bet you as a consumer will fit the bill. Bit the same as your old worn out car/truck tyres.

Then after 20 odd years, it all starts over again from scratch.

Inshort, no such thing as a free lunch.

[KhunLA]

27 minutes ago, bluejets said:

As one has already noted, not the run-of-the-mill result considering what the cost is dust to dust.

What you fail to recognise ( why I don't know as it is so obvious) is the initial set up costs.

Then come any repair/ maintenance/ replacement costs.

Then, which will probably come as a real surprise to you, the future cost of disposing of any spent / worn out/ no longer operational sections of the installation. 

Even now there are countries with stockpiles of used buggered solar panels with no idea where to dispose of them. One can bet you as a consumer will fit the bill. Bit the same as your old worn out car/truck tyres.

Then after 20 odd years, it all starts over again from scratch.

Inshort, no such thing as a free lunch.

That's a bit of a negative view, of some products, and old solar components, cars & tyres can be recycled, repurposed, in some many countries.  Solar panels definitely are being recycled in some countries, not sure about TH.  Battery packs are being recycled.   Inverters probably repairable, or can be scrapped for parts.   Cars & tyres are being recycle, down to the last bits.

 

If I had a few solar panels crap out, and not worth or couldn't find someplace to recycle them, I'd have myself a pre-made wall or roof panels, for a storage shed   Anything can be repurposed in my world.

 

Buying quality components, will lasts years, possibly decades, hopefully.   Everyone trash is another's treasure.  My cousin had an excellent income from other people, trash.

 

ROI will depend on many factors, and solar probably not for all, whether practical, convenient or affordable.  Size the system correctly, and ROI should be 3 to 5 to <10yrs.  Depending on use.

 

The OP is going to require a massive system, or multiple smaller systems.  Another poster asking the same query, could probably get away with an inexpensive 5kWh tie in, as just asked about supplementing the cost of running their one smaller AC unit.

[lom]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:36 PM, cmike said:

Would 10Kw meet our needs?

No, you would need  around 25KW of inverter (3 x 8 in parallel would do) , the same amount of panels and 75 KWh of batteries

to make you self sufficient.

Do you have enough roof space to accommodate 48 panels?

[KhunLA]

On 2/28/2024 at 1:36 PM, cmike said:

We enquired at one company and they say we need a 10 kw installation and the price is about 400K baht. 

 

Would 10Kw meet our needs?

 

On 2/29/2024 at 9:50 AM, cmike said:

I just think i was solar panels to cover the daily usage ( he said 10kWh) . No battery.

 

I suspect, not even close to meet your needs, though would depend how many people actually at home and using during the daytime.. 

 

We have an 8kWh system, and on crappy days, it barely meets our needs, and we're only 2 people & 1 dog, at home most of the day, with well built house, with solar in mind when built.  Although we do need an additional production of about 6kWh during the day, to recharge battery, for overnight use.  

 

On low production days, with conservative use (no ACs) it has taken all day to top the batteries back up.

 

฿400k is a silly price, IMHO, for 10kWh system with no battery back up.  Our system (installed) cost ฿445k, and ฿185k of that was the ESSs/battery back-ups, for overnight use, to be 'off grid'.

 

Our most conservative months, around 350kWh, being our lowest, Aug, Sept & Oct, not owning an EV (car), as E-MB uses very littler per day:

 

Our most abusive month, and we were out of town for a couple days: 

 

We use 6-8kWh overnight (14 hrs), so 180-240kWh monthly, is during non-production hours.

 

 

[Crossy]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:50 AM, cmike said:

just think i was solar panels to cover the daily usage ( he said 10kWh) . No battery.

 

You might cover the daytime usage with that.

 

A 10kW system will generate about 30kWh during sunshine hours, but if you have no storage and no net-metering a lot of that will be wasted.

[cmike]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

 

You might cover the daytime usage with that.

 

A 10kW system will generate about 30kWh during sunshine hours, but if you have no storage and no net-metering a lot of that will be wasted.

 

For some reason or other the family don't want to invest in a battery. They are thinking of daytime coverage only, which is a bit weird as most of them are not home all day.

I will start to read the meters (there are 5) each morning and evening. Maybe I will convince them to buy a battery.

[Crossy]

You could go with one of the hybrid inverters that will work without a battery, add a battery to it at a later date.

 

Read your meters at 9AM and 5PM to get an idea of your daytime usage.