Often electricity outage and undervoltage

[passiflora]

Good day everyone 

Since I stay in thailand, we have so many electrical appliances broken (aircon boards, washing machine inverter and so on

This night we had as usual a 6 hours outage and 1 hour undervoltage Resulting in the soundbar/home theater being ruined 

I was wondering if any of you have ever requested compensation from the PEA.

Thanks for your help and replies

[simon43]

How does an undervoltage ruin your soundbar/home theatre?  More likely due to an overvoltage 'spike'.

[BritManToo]

Get yourself solar panels with batteries.

Then have correct uninterrupted power 24/7.

[Gottfrid]

13 minutes ago, passiflora said:

I was wondering if any of you have ever requested compensation from the PEA.

Is this a serious question? 🤣🤣

If so, good luck man. You will really need it.

Edited September 5 by Gottfrid

[nauseus]

19 minutes ago, passiflora said:

Good day everyone 

Since I stay in thailand, we have so many electrical appliances broken (aircon boards, washing machine inverter and so on

This night we had as usual a 6 hours outage and 1 hour undervoltage Resulting in the soundbar/home theater being ruined 

I was wondering if any of you have ever requested compensation from the PEA.

Thanks for your help and replies

 

 

Welcome  to Thailand.

 

Good luck with your claim.

[Crossy]

The simplest way to mitigate under (and over) voltage would be to install an under/over relay device, many are available on Lazada etc.

 

These cut the power when the voltage goes outside the set range, of course you then have no power to whatever it is protecting.

 

Alternatively, voltage regulators are available (both small and large) which regulate your voltage, at least to an extent.

 

How low is your voltage going? Do you have logs you can show PEA? You're probably not going to get compensation but you might get them to fix (or at least improve) it.

 

Or, do like we and others have done and install solar with a battery for backup, say farewell to any other power cuts with the bonus of reduced power bills.

 

[JBChiangRai]

41 minutes ago, simon43 said:

How does an undervoltage ruin your soundbar/home theatre?  More likely due to an overvoltage 'spike'.

 

Undervoltage will cause issues for anything with a motor or switching power supply (which your soundbar probably has).  If you're lucky it will be an internal fuse.  Undervoltage causes it draw more current to compensate, usually a fuse blows.

[Crossy]

14 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

Undervoltage will cause issues for anything with a motor or switching power supply (which your soundbar probably has).  If you're lucky it will be an internal fuse.  Undervoltage causes it draw more current to compensate, usually a fuse blows.

 

Whilst this is true, most (if not all) modern wall-wart switchers are "universal" and good for 100V-250V which makes them almost immune to power excursions.

 

[passiflora]

24 minutes ago, Crossy said:

The simplest way to mitigate under (and over) voltage would be to install an under/over relay device, many are available on Lazada etc.

 

These cut the power when the voltage goes outside the set range, of course you then have no power to whatever it is protecting.

 

Alternatively, voltage regulators are available (both small and large) which regulate your voltage, at least to an extent.

 

How low is your voltage going? Do you have logs you can show PEA? You're not going to get compensation but you might get them to fix (or at least improve) it.

 

Or, do like we and others have done and install solar with a battery for backup, say farewell to any other power cuts with the bonus of reduced power bills.

 

Thank you for your constructive answer, the average voltage during undervoltage is between 40 and 50 volts. Regarding solar panels, it is in my plans, but it is a big investment that is not possible to make profitable in the short term (or simply to make profitable), okay I would not be dependent on the network, I would no longer suffer from power outages, but with a maximum bill of 4500 b per month (during the hot season), despite many electrical appliances (aircons, fridges, fans, coffee machine, comp, ...) it will take me between 12 and 15 years for it to be profitable, without forgetting that by then it will be necessary to change the batteries and the maintenance costs of the photovoltaic network

 

Edited September 5 by passiflora
Adding picture

[Crossy]

@passiflora no regulator is going to fix that low a level, you need to disconnect way before it gets that bad.

 

Actually, that looks like a HV phase loss upstream from your village transformer.

 

You may wish to re-visit the payback time for solar, things have become a lot more competitively priced in recent years.

 

Or, alternatively get an auto-start genset and transfer switch (much cheaper than solar but it needs fuel) to bridge over your low-voltage periods. 

[fredwiggy]

Worst power company I've ever known about. In 6 years, the power goes out almost daily for a few seconds. No reason this should happen. Most every week, the power goes off for a couple hours. Low power happens every couple of months, where half the house has power and the other doesn't. I've talked to PEA a few times and they've said they will look into it but they don't.I understand from my ex wife's family here, that this has been going on for years before I moved here. Back in Texas, the power went out maybe 3 times a year, always during storms, and never for a few seconds almost daily. Obviously they don't know how to regulate power here , nor how to maintain the system, at least here in Sisaket province south.

[impulse]

38 minutes ago, Crossy said:

@passiflora no regulator is going to fix that low a level, you need to disconnect way before it gets that bad.

 

Actually, that looks like a HV phase loss upstream from your village transformer.

 

You may wish to re-visit the payback time for solar, things have become a lot more competitively priced in recent years.

 

Or, alternatively get an auto-start genset and transfer switch (much cheaper than solar but it needs fuel) to bridge over your low-voltage periods. 

 

What would be the downside to buying the battery pack and inverter now, then buy the solar panels when the budget permits?  Charge the batteries when the power's good, and use them automatically when the voltage sags...  Probably wouldn't even need a full bank of batteries for a couple of hours of sag.  Kinda like a bridge between a small UPS and a full solar system, knowing that the panels will be coming later if he eventually wants to get off the grid.

 

I love my Uni-T UT71E recording voltmeter for watching the voltage variations throughout the day.  In the OP's case, seeing the time of the sags could help the PEA find the culprit.  They're a little spendy (around $200) and there is a learning curve, but great info.  I plot the data up on Excel (that's the learning curve).

 

[Crossy]

11 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

What would be the downside to buying the battery pack and inverter now, then buy the solar panels when the budget permits?  Charge the batteries when the power's good, and use them automatically when the voltage sags...  Probably wouldn't even need a full bank of batteries for a couple of hours of sag.  Kinda like a bridge between a small UPS and a full solar system, knowing that the panels will be coming later if he eventually wants to get off the grid.

 

I love my Uni-T UT71E recording voltmeter for watching the voltage variations throughout the day.  In the OP's case, seeing the time of the sags could help the PEA find the culprit.  They're a little spendy (around $200) and there is a learning curve, but great info.  I plot the data up on Excel (that's the learning curve).

 

 

Yup, that would work.

 

Of course a decent hybrid inverter and sensible battery isn't going to be cheap (probably 3 grand US ish).

 

The solar panels are the lowest-cost part of the equation. It would be crazy not to include them 🙂 

[NanLaew]

5 hours ago, passiflora said:

Good day everyone 

Since I stay in thailand, we have so many electrical appliances broken (aircon boards, washing machine inverter and so on

This night we had as usual a 6 hours outage and 1 hour undervoltage Resulting in the soundbar/home theater being ruined 

I was wondering if any of you have ever requested compensation from the PEA.

Thanks for your help and replies

 

Invest in an AVR (automatic voltage regulator). They're cheap as chips these days.

[NanLaew]

3 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

Back in Texas, the power went out maybe 3 times a year, always during storms, and never for a few seconds almost daily.

 

More recently, in Houston, TX, my home had power for only 18 days out of 60. It wasn't always like that, but nowadays, the light company seems to rely on storm damage to show them where their infrastructure is weak and needs replacing rather than routine or preventive maintenance.

 

Meanwhile, up here in Udon, I put up with about 10 years of low voltage in the evenings. I was on the cusp of buying and installing an AVR when the light company completed their grid upgrades, and it's been rock-solid for over three years now.

 

YMMV

[fredwiggy]

1 hour ago, NanLaew said:

 

More recently, in Houston, TX, my home had power for only 18 days out of 60. It wasn't always like that, but nowadays, the light company seems to rely on storm damage to show them where their infrastructure is weak and needs replacing rather than routine or preventive maintenance.

 

Meanwhile, up here in Udon, I put up with about 10 years of low voltage in the evenings. I was on the cusp of buying and installing an AVR when the light company completed their grid upgrades, and it's been rock-solid for over three years now.

 

YMMV

Not much after I posted the power went out again. This time for 2 1/2 hours.

[bluejets]

On 9/5/2024 at 6:11 PM, fredwiggy said:

Low power happens every couple of months, where half the house has power and the other doesn't.

Are you on multi-phase supply?

[fredwiggy]

24 minutes ago, bluejets said:

Are you on multi-phase supply?

I'm not really sure. After talking to my son in law back home, he said this happens when not enough electricity is coming from the supplier. It doesn't happen much. The main problem is that most days the power goes off for just a few seconds, and I have to reboot my computer and load it, and I know this could harm it. The other problem is that the power has been going off almost weekly for an hour or more for many years, and this isn't normal. I also get mild shocks when touching my computer box and the microwave, so I know the builder didn't know much about proper grounding.

Edited September 6 by fredwiggy

[UWEB]

1 hour ago, fredwiggy said:

I'm not really sure. After talking to my son in law back home, he said this happens when not enough electricity is coming from the supplier. It doesn't happen much. The main problem is that most days the power goes off for just a few seconds, and I have to reboot my computer and load it, and I know this could harm it. The other problem is that the power has been going off almost weekly for an hour or more for many years, and this isn't normal. I also get mild shocks when touching my computer box and the microwave, so I know the builder didn't know much about proper grounding.

A good UPS would solve the problem for your Computer.

[fredwiggy]

13 minutes ago, UWEB said:

A good UPS would solve the problem for your Computer.

Have been thinking about it

[bluejets]

15 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

I'm not really sure. After talking to my son in law back home, he said this happens when not enough electricity is coming from the supplier. It doesn't happen much. The main problem is that most days the power goes off for just a few seconds, and I have to reboot my computer and load it, and I know this could harm it. The other problem is that the power has been going off almost weekly for an hour or more for many years, and this isn't normal. I also get mild shocks when touching my computer box and the microwave, so I know the builder didn't know much about proper grounding.

Might pay to check.

Only way to lose power to half your house is with your distribution board / final sub-circuits otherwise.

Edited September 6 by bluejets