And so the exodus of quality expats begins. This time it's personal

[solarperson]

This is from an article in the nation in March of 2010. Can any confirm that this project has been started or is near completion?

[solarperson]

As you can see I am new here. Below is the article.

Issaree Suwunnavid, CEO for Asia at Ebeling Heffernan, said the first energy firm - managed by Somyos Durongkadej - had been picked up. Somyos plans to build a 1-megawatt solar farm in Chiang Mai.

The plant will be built next month at an estimated cost of Bt350 million. The project has been financed up to this point with about Bt100 million from Ebeling Heffernan.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/03/17/business/Ebeling-Heffernan-plans-Asean-fund-with-Thai-focus-30124838.html

Thanks for any info you may have.

[gotlost]

Very large province. Where at?

[liveinlos]

It takes 3,800 watts to power one 13.2 btu home air conditioner 4 hours per day<BR><BR>The average western style home in Thailand would need around 10,000 watts per month to operate everything including ac for 4 hours per day<BR><BR>Currently if off the grid the govt is buying back electricity for 8 baht per watt for the next 10 years<BR><BR>If owner generated a million watts a month and sold them all back 8,000,000 baht per month x 12 months = 96,000,000 x 10 years = 9,600,000,000 baht minus operating expenses<BR><BR>So for 350,000,000 investment this looks quite attractive<BR><BR>Whether it actually gets build or all the money disappears prior is all about Thailand<BR><BR><BR><BR>

[naboo]

It takes 3,800 watts to power one 13.2 btu home air conditioner 4 hours per day. The average western style home in Thailand would need around 10,000 watts per month to operate everything including ac for 4 hours per day. Currently if off the grid the govt is buying back electricity for 8 baht per watt for the next 10 years. If owner generated a million watts a month and sold them all back 8,000,000 baht per month x 12 months = 96,000,000 x 10 years = 9,600,000,000 baht minus operating expenses. So for 350,000,000 investment this looks quite attractive. Whether it actually gets build or all the money disappears prior is all about Thailand

Your calculations assume the sun shines 24 hrs a day, directly above in the sky, for the next 10 years.

From here (I know, North Carolina is not Chiang Mai, but its what I could find, and expecting an average of 5hrs per day good sunshine in Chiang Mai is optimistic anyway)

The solar panels are able to track the sun, but they are expected to produce power for 16 to 20 percent of each day, he added. SunPower built a similar site in New Jersey.......

The photovoltaic site, built by SunPower Corp., has a capacity of 1 megawatt and is expected to produce 1.7 million kilowatt-hours of power a year. That’s enough to provide electricity for a little over 100 homes, based on the average customer use of 14,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, Hughes said.

Also, your suggestion that the government is buying electricity back at 8 Baht per watt is a little unbelievable. 8 Baht per unit maybe? A unit is a kilowatt hour, maybe what you were thinking.

So, 1.7million*8Baht=13.6millionBaht/year, so 136 million Baht over the 10 years you mentioned, not even half the cost of building the plant. Not quite such an attractive proposition. Solar power is nowhere near cost effective.

[Barty]

I wonder if the 350 million Baht quoted is correct. The prices last year were around 140 million per MW and they are dropping. I also don't know when the company in the OP signed the contract with the PEA, but if it was last year or early this year the price per unit was over 11 Baht.

[garyh]

Wikipedia

Confusion of watts, watt-hours, and watts per hour

Power and energy are frequently confused. Power is the rate at which energy is generated and consumed.

For example, when a light bulb with a power rating of 100W is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt-hours (W·h), 0.1 kilowatt-hour, or 360 kJ. This same amount of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours, or a 50-watt bulb for 2 hours. A power station would be rated in multiples of watts, but its annual energy sales would be in multiples of watt-hours. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy equivalent to a steady power of 1 kilowatt running for 1 hour, or 3.6 MJ.

Terms such as watts per hour are often misused.^[9] Watts per hour properly refers to the change of power per hour. Watts per hour (W/h) might be useful to characterize the ramp-up behavior of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power output of 1 MW from 0 MW in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h. Hydroelectric power plants have a very high ramp-up rate, which makes them particularly useful in peak load and emergency situations.

Major energy production or consumption is often expressed as terawatt-hours for a given period that is often a calendar year or financial year. One terawatt-hour is equal to a sustained power of approximately 114 megawatts for a period of one year.

[Blinky Bill]

C'mon, Priceless!! Where are you?

[gotlost]

C'mon, Priceless!! Where are you?

And where is the #$%@^ thing being built?

[Lizard2010]

Ive got a wee small one 1KW.

Cost A$8000 it has saved me A$175 in 7 months.

With the price of power goin up in OZ.

It will be paying itself.

[hagler]

Ive got a wee small one 1KW.

Cost A$8000 it has saved me A$175 in 7 months.

With the price of power goin up in OZ.

It will be paying itself.

yep. in 26.6 years time you will have got your money back. outstanding investment return