Electricity use hit new high Monday night as Thailand continues to swelter

[snoop1130]

 

Thailand set a new record for electricity consumption at 8.58pm on Monday night, when 35,830 megawatts of electricity were consumed, according to the Office of the Energy Regulatory Commission (OERC).

 

Based on reports from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and the Provincial Electricity Authority, the OERC said that the last record was at 9.41pm on May 6 last year, when 34,826 megawatts were consumed.

 

More new records may be set in the coming days, if the already scorching weather gets even hotter.

 

Full story: Thai PBS 2024-04-23

 

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[Crossy]

I would not be at all surprised if rolling-blackouts (or just blackouts) were on the cards.

 

Get your gensets serviced and/or your backup batteries (even simple UPS) checked and charged.

[Yorkshire Tea]

My wife asked me why isn't the govt giving subsidies/grants to encourage home solar power.  I told her she needs to ask her govt, not me 🙂

Edited April 23 by Yorkshire Tea

[Gweiloman]

Hot weather, my behind. It’s all this EVangelists charging their Chinese made milk floats.

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Just received the MEA bill for April this morning. 7,013 baht. Last month was 4,434 and February was 2,981.

 

 

 

 

[John Drake]

Not my fault. I didn't turn the a/c on until 10:30pm.

[dinsdale]

It's the Russians. 

Edited April 23 by dinsdale

[worrab]

We don’t use A/C during the day, just normal fans. Then the lad has his on when he goes to bed at 20.00 all night. Then we have ours on from 22.00 running all night. Used to be for about 6 hours but this heat………wow!!
Bill still only came to just over 1500THB.

[Geoffggi]

It will be interesting if the country does continue to go all out for electric vehicles ...............LOL

[hotchilli]

Considering the climate of Thailand you'd think more new homes would be more eco friendly using alternative powers sources.

[JensenZ]

10 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Considering the climate of Thailand you'd think more new homes would be more eco friendly using alternative powers sources.

I never thought that. The cost of setting up solar panels is too high. It's like paying 10 years of electricity in advance and then replacing them in the future for another upfront cost.

[rexpotter]

We have large generator here and last week I heard a big ‘Boom’ about 2pm, and then no power. I heard the big gen start momentarily then it ran out of fuel. Then they got some fuel and started it again and all the filters were clogged so it stopped again. Then they had to go buy new filters. By the time they got it running PEA had sorted it out.

[thesetat]

13 hours ago, Etaoin Shrdlu said:

Just received the MEA bill for April this morning. 7,013 baht. Last month was 4,434 and February was 2,981.

 

 

 

 

Mine was doubled than it normally is. Turning on air mid day when the worst heat comes. Almost 7000 this month. 

[sammieuk1]

According to my bill I must have joined the wiggle gigawatt club and become a platinum member 🤔

[herfiehandbag]

13 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

Hot weather, my behind. It’s all this EVangelists charging their Chinese made milk floats.

Evangelists - absolutely classic, brilliant phrase coined!

[jacko45k]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

More new records may be set in the coming days, if the already scorching weather gets even hotter.

And my phone app is predicting it will.

[JensenZ]

26 minutes ago, thesetat said:

Mine was doubled than it normally is. Turning on air mid day when the worst heat comes. Almost 7000 this month. 

My March and April bills were nearly identical. It's the air conditioners working harder that ramps up bills. My hours of usage haven't changed. Setting them 1 or 2C higher when it's hotter outside is not a bad idea. It's comfortable enough and cuts back on power usage.

 

For Pattaya residents - the sun is directly overhead today (April 24) at 12:21, so it's theoretically the hottest day of the year. For Bangkok, it's on April 26. It happens again on August 19 in Pattaya and August 16 in Bangkok.

[jacko45k]

3 minutes ago, JensenZ said:

For Pattaya residents - the sun is directly overhead today (April 24) at 12:21, so it's theoretically the hottest day of the year. For Bangkok, it's on April 26. It happens again on August 19 in Pattaya and August 16 in Bangkok.

I shall remain home then... and not out on my motorbike like yesterday. Felt like my head was being boiled in my helmet while waiting at the lights! Might explain a few errant posts!

[Sydebolle]

I did all the calculations; a single house with a 8x4 swimming pool (i.e. a pump running 2 x 1 hour/daily) and comfy air temperatures by state-of-the-art inverter units cannot be fed with solar power to reach a breakeven point. 

Even if the swimming pool pump works on-grid only (i.e. no sun = no electricity), you still cannot make ends meet and hence it is with the money-greedy government to do its home work on the taxation of solar power equipment imports. 

All this is of course a big joke considering the fact, that we live in a country with 250+ sunshine days a year while in frozen Europe with not even half the solar power they manage to run the latter with efficiency and profitability of the equipment owner - go back and do your home work! 

[Rampant Rabbit]

with the general increase in wealth in the  village over the last 12  years when it went from tin shacks to concrete  houses, then they all started putting in aircon.............but they forgot one vital thing....... no insulation, poorly  fitting  doors  windows so they waste so much energy its unbelievable.

I built with double  block  walls with air  gap and 4  inch insuolation over  all ceilings, all windows air  tight you  have a job opening the doors  into rooms.

With all that I have a small house 50m2 one 12k aircon bill is 1680 in hot season on 24/7 set at 26c..........note many Thais seem to prefer 16-18c crazy.

If i did it  again I would  install  solar but now cant be arsed .

Edited April 24 by Rampant Rabbit

[rexpotter]

10 minutes ago, Rampant Rabbit said:

with the general increase in wealth in the  village over the last 12  years when it went from tin shacks to concrete  houses, then they all started putting in aircon.............but they forgot one vital thing....... no insulation, poorly  fitting  doors  windows so they waste so much energy its unbelievable.

I built with double  block  walls with air  gap and 4  inch insuolation over  all ceilings, all windows air  tight you  have a job opening the doors  into rooms.

With all that I have a small house 50m2 one 12k aircon bill is 1680 in hot season on 24/7 set at 26c..........note many Thais seem to prefer 16-18c crazy.

If i did it  again I would  install  solar but now cant be arsed .

So true, they waste so many things here, from food to electric to water etc. I would guess 30% of the rice produced here is thrown away after meals.

 

Leave a building on a sweltering hot day and don't close the door. How many time I have walked over somewhere sitting in a bank or somewhere and repeatedly closed the door.

 

My condo looks great but don't look any closer than that. Every moving part, joint, socket and pipe is very poor quality. And I mean everything. Never ends, leaking this bad seals doors that don't fit, hinges that are of such poor quality they would never be sold in most countries. But its all looks good, that's all that matters.

[statman78]

3 hours ago, JensenZ said:

I never thought that. The cost of setting up solar panels is too high. It's like paying 10 years of electricity in advance and then replacing them in the future for another upfront cost.

We installed solar panels 13 months ago.  I’ve been tracking our power usage and comparing it to our usage to the time before we installed the system.  Based on this info our savings will pay for the system in a little over 6 years.  The warranty on the electronics is 10 years and the panels for 20 years.  The company comes annually to check the system and clean the panels.  Well worth the investment.

[Gweiloman]

4 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

I did all the calculations; a single house with a 8x4 swimming pool (i.e. a pump running 2 x 1 hour/daily) and comfy air temperatures by state-of-the-art inverter units cannot be fed with solar power to reach a breakeven point. 

Even if the swimming pool pump works on-grid only (i.e. no sun = no electricity), you still cannot make ends meet and hence it is with the money-greedy government to do its home work on the taxation of solar power equipment imports. 

All this is of course a big joke considering the fact, that we live in a country with 250+ sunshine days a year while in frozen Europe with not even half the solar power they manage to run the latter with efficiency and profitability of the equipment owner - go back and do your home work! 

 

3 hours ago, statman78 said:

We installed solar panels 13 months ago.  I’ve been tracking our power usage and comparing it to our usage to the time before we installed the system.  Based on this info our savings will pay for the system in a little over 6 years.  The warranty on the electronics is 10 years and the panels for 20 years.  The company comes annually to check the system and clean the panels.  Well worth the investment.

The ROI will even be quicker if you are on TOU.

[PETERTHEEATER]

Ironically, one of the Ads invading this topic is for underfloor heating.🙄

[JensenZ]

6 hours ago, statman78 said:

We installed solar panels 13 months ago.  I’ve been tracking our power usage and comparing it to our usage to the time before we installed the system.  Based on this info our savings will pay for the system in a little over 6 years.  The warranty on the electronics is 10 years and the panels for 20 years.  The company comes annually to check the system and clean the panels.  Well worth the investment.

Sure, if you have some spare cash to pay for 6 years of electricity upfront, it might make sense if you don't think you'll be moving anywhere in 6 years, like returning to your home country. A lot can happen in 6 years and most figures I've seen talk about 8 years or more to recoup the costs.

 

I would not care for an investment that took over 6 years to see a return.

[The Fugitive]

23 hours ago, Yorkshire Tea said:

My wife asked me why isn't the govt giving subsidies/grants to encourage home solar power.  I told her she needs to ask her govt, not me 🙂

Never mind grants and subsidies, I want completely free equipment, installation and maintenance same as UK. 

[rexpotter]

9 hours ago, JensenZ said:

My March and April bills were nearly identical. It's the air conditioners working harder that ramps up bills. My hours of usage haven't changed. Setting them 1 or 2C higher when it's hotter outside is not a bad idea. It's comfortable enough and cuts back on power usage.

 

For Pattaya residents - the sun is directly overhead today (April 24) at 12:21, so it's theoretically the hottest day of the year. For Bangkok, it's on April 26. It happens again on August 19 in Pattaya and August 16 in Bangkok.

Add in, most folks are running with very short fuses. For me, the pool is too hot, and I can only get a short walk in early before I start sweating like a pig. Consider, a few weeks ago here we had a short pretty good rain. It cooled it down from 40c to 26c very quickly. Now back to unbearable, every dam day.

[nglodnig]

On 4/23/2024 at 11:19 AM, snoop1130 said:

35,830 megawatts of electricity were consumed

Do you mean megawatt HOURS as a megawatt is a megajoule PER SECOND

[JensenZ]

12 minutes ago, rexpotter said:

Add in, most folks are running with very short fuses. For me, the pool is too hot, and I can only get a short walk in early before I start sweating like a pig. Consider, a few weeks ago here we had a short pretty good rain. It cooled it down from 40c to 26c very quickly. Now back to unbearable, every dam day.

In Pattaya last night, the lowest the temperature got, by about 5:00 was 29C. It was 30C most of the night. I walk late at night when the temperatures are at their lowest, but my clothes are drenched walking in that heat at about 6 km/h. Fortunately, I have a home gym where I can train in comfort.

[Dario]

The problem now here in the Esaan is the following: when the temperature goes up to 41º or 42º the aircon works for hours to get the temperature down to let's say only 30º. Now, think about 4 aircons in our house. Before the heatwave started we only used fans and our last bill was only 2'822 Baht. But our next bill must be in the vicinity of around 8'000 Baht, I guess. This is absolutely crazy.

Edited April 25 by Dario