What Is The Cost For Installing Solar System For Home?

[nicgwee]

Hi,

Do anyone in Thailand install solar system/panels on their homes? Am thinking of powering my whole new house with solar energy as main and the grid as secondary when solar enegry are low but am concern about the cost. Does anyone here had any experience or who had done it before in thailand? I understand that installing while constructing the home would be cheaper than installing it on a ready build/old house. But what was the estimate cost of new vs ready/old house?

Thanks

Nicgwee

[sirineou]

Hi Nicgwee

I think you will get better answers to your question if you posted in the real-state section of this forum.

Having said that let me also add that , electricity in Thailand is very inexpensive, so unless you are considering solar energy because you are concerned about the environment, I don't think solar is a coast affective option for Thailand.

[Naam]

"Am thinking of powering my whole new house with solar energy as main and the grid as secondary when solar enegry are low but am concern about the cost."

your question reminds me of "how long is a piece of string?" don't expect any answer based on the fact "my whole new house" you provided.

read this thread and then start asking questions or rather weep and abandon your plan:

[nocturn]

the short answer is unless an roi of 2 hundred years is acceptable to you, solar is not really economically feasible in thailand.

Panels are over priced, as is the equipment and it is difficult to find an installer that will even provide a quote.

i tried in a house i built 5 years back and ended up giving up entirely.

[samran]

"Am thinking of powering my whole new house with solar energy as main and the grid as secondary when solar enegry are low but am concern about the cost."

your question reminds me of "how long is a piece of string?" don't expect any answer based on the fact "my whole new house" you provided.

read this thread and then start asking questions or rather weep and abandon your plan:

The story goes that the former head of the Ministry of Energy, now Thai airways president Dr Piyasvasti Amranand, and the best energy brain in thailand once considered installing solar panels but gave up when he considered the economics of it.

[jaideeguy]

As the others imply......it is a costly way to outfit your house with solar......long time to get your roi @ current grid prices for electricity here.

But that may not always be true and maybe sometimes after 'peak oil' kicks in, the time to recover your roi may be shorter.

One consideration if you are planning to go solar for elect or water heater is to orient your house so that you have a south facing roof so that in the future instalation will be cheaper and less unsightly.

As Naam says go to the 'diy house sub forum' and do a search for solar....there has been lots of discussions on it.

[dumball]

I had considered that idea a couple of years ago for the new house in the village , no electricity there , but opted for a generator instead to keep the batteries charged which is what they use at this present time . The price I was qoted for a house with all normal electical components and appliances was $6000.00 us , there was a 28 year full waranty on all major components . Hope this gives you some idea for reference , I am in Cambodia by the way .

[Crossy]

Moving to DIY for better exposure.

[Naam]

As the others imply......it is a costly way to outfit your house with solar......long time to get your roi @ current grid prices for electricity here.

But that may not always be true and maybe sometimes after 'peak oil' kicks in, the time to recover your roi may be shorter.

One consideration if you are planning to go solar for elect or water heater is to orient your house so that you have a south facing roof so that in the future instalation will be cheaper and less unsightly.

As Naam says go to the 'diy house sub forum' and do a search for solar....there has been lots of discussions on it.

instead of 200 years you will break even after only 199 years

[canopy]

no electricity there...I was quoted for a house...was $6000.00 us...in Cambodia...28 year full warranty on all major components .

Off-grid may be slightly off topic, but there must be some mis-interpretation in that quote. For comparison modest off-grid solutions in Thailand run over a million baht and don't have enough juice to run even one air conditioner. Warranties are usually just 1-2 years on everything, save panels which have 20+ year warranties. There is no eventual payback or environmental friendliness on off-grid because because hundreds or even thousands of pounds of expensive batteries need purchased every few years and old ones tossed out.

[katabeachbum]

Not even solar heated hot water makes any reasonable ROI

[InterestedObserver]

Domestic solar energy projects only makes sense when governments subsidize the installation as part of an overall energy policy.

[jaideeguy]

As the others imply......it is a costly way to outfit your house with solar......long time to get your roi @ current grid prices for electricity here.

But that may not always be true and maybe sometimes after 'peak oil' kicks in, the time to recover your roi may be shorter.

One consideration if you are planning to go solar for elect or water heater is to orient your house so that you have a south facing roof so that in the future instalation will be cheaper and less unsightly.

As Naam says go to the 'diy house sub forum' and do a search for solar....there has been lots of discussions on it.

instead of 200 years you will break even after only 199 years

Naam......how can a person with a scientific mind doubt 'peak oil'??

Would appreciate your feedback...

"Domestic solar energy projects only makes sense when governments subsidize the installation as part of an overall energy policy."

Actually there is something like a subsidy in that the importation of solar and other altenative energy components is duty free.

[InterestedObserver]

Peak oil? Someone please tell when new reserves will stop being discovered. Does that include oil shale deposits?

[jaideeguy]

Yeah, there are several new sources of oil, but so far, they are not economically feasable....yet. The big oil companies are just waiting until the price of the 'easy to extract' reserves are depleted and the price of oil goes up enough to make it fea$able to extract from oil shale/sands etc.

Face the truth......the price you are NOW paying at the pump and the price of electricity will NEVER GO DOWN !! ONLY UP.

[InterestedObserver]

Yeah, there are several new sources of oil, but so far, they are not economically feasable....yet. The big oil companies are just waiting until the price of the 'easy to extract' reserves are depleted and the price of oil goes up enough to make it fea$able to extract from oil shale/sands etc.

Face the truth......the price you are NOW paying at the pump and the price of electricity will NEVER GO DOWN !! ONLY UP.

But what has that got to do with peak oil. Peak oil is defined as the point when there is no more supply to be found, price has nothing to do with it.

[electau]

A good guide is $10000 per kilowatt of generating capacity installed.

Solar panels

Plus the following:

Inverter and battery charging equipment.

Batteries of sufficient capacity.

Alternative power source, eg a 5kva generator.

Remember, peak sunlight is usually averages 5 hours a day over a predetermined period.

Quoted output of solar panels in watts/amps are the peak max values only.

And if you daily average load is between 10 and 20 kwh it is a very expensive operation compared with the grid based electricity supply.

And forget the 20/25 year warranties, read the fine print first.

[electau]

Not even solar heated hot water makes any reasonable ROI

Solar HWS providing one has the initial capacity for a domestic installation (270litres) they certainly are. You have the capital cost up front if you retrofit, but with a new house construction the costs are minimal and may in some countries such as Australia attract a goverment rebate, new or retrofit.

[Naam]

As the others imply......it is a costly way to outfit your house with solar......long time to get your roi @ current grid prices for electricity here.

But that may not always be true and maybe sometimes after 'peak oil' kicks in, the time to recover your roi may be shorter.

One consideration if you are planning to go solar for elect or water heater is to orient your house so that you have a south facing roof so that in the future instalation will be cheaper and less unsightly.

As Naam says go to the 'diy house sub forum' and do a search for solar....there has been lots of discussions on it.

instead of 200 years you will break even after only 199 years

Naam......how can a person with a scientific mind doubt 'peak oil'??

Would appreciate your feedback...

"Domestic solar energy projects only makes sense when governments subsidize the installation as part of an overall energy policy."

Actually there is something like a subsidy in that the importation of solar and other altenative energy components is duty free.

since 2-3 decades until this very day i am listening to the "peak oil" fairy tale, but nearly every month new reserves are found. only day before yesterday Iraq added 28 billion barrels to its proven reserves. check Brazil's recently discovered crude reserves in the South Atlantic.

peak oil and peak gold make me yaaawwwwnnnnn JDG. even though i am making nice money with peak oil, peak gold and a bunch of peak whatchamacallits, nobody can force me to believe in all these peak bullshite theories. naturally i admit that oil reserves are not infinite but i am convinced that neither you, nor your children nor my [not so] humble self will live to see peak oil ante portas.

as far as solar energy is concerned: i have checked the facts. and i keep on checking on a continous basis. result: if there was the slightest chance to make solar economically feasible available i would go for it. in my home country it IS feasible. but only with the tax €UR subsidies the freaking "greens" take from the pockets of the average citizen who cannot come up with the necessary investment capital.

solar energy in Thailand? YES, but only for hot water or a little pond pump. photovoltaic solar in Thailand to replace grid supply? even partially replacement is possible only in the wet dreams of those who have not even started to do their homework but ask questions "how much is a car?" and "will i marry a beautiful woman?"

no offence meant!

:jap:

[mysterybkk]

i did a presentation on this for one of my classes a few years back. if i recall correctly, it's not feasible to power anything other than small appliances like fans and water heaters. the whole thing would set you back.... 750,000 baht if i recall correctly. and you would break even in something like 25 years or so. i could be wrong though.... and i'm sure things have changed a bit since then. there is a market for it, but it's very experimental at the moment. not many people are willing to lay down that much cash for something long term. just doesnt fit with the way of thinking here.

[electau]

There is certainly a place for photo voltaic electricity generation, and that is is remote areas whre it is not practicable to supply grid power or continuous diesel generation, and demand is not high. Such as communications, navigation systems, small medical and health facilities, small water pumping applications etc.

But for the average domestic consumer it is far too expensive.

There are alternatives to coal and oil/gas fuels. One is nuclear power, clean and green. The other is geothermal energy, and another is solar energy from heat to make steam and drive a turbine.

It is a matter of cost, capital cost and cost per MWh generated.

　

[electau]

And if you were to consider solar electrical generation, it is not maintainance free.

Batteries have to be replaced perhaps on a 5 to 7 year basis, electronics have a life of perhaps 10 years, and one should not forget the need for insurance from environmental damage that may occur, lightning, storms etc, to the complete system.

And then there are changes to technology and upgrading of equipment as required.

[canopy]

Absolutely--these things are not maintenance free. And batteries offered for solar solutions in Thailand I have seen are good for just 3 years or even less, not 5-7. Consider that if you have a power failure on the grid there are technicians ready to fix it 24 hours a day with all the parts they need and they get the job done within a few hours. If your off-grid solar system fails, you are on your own. Trouble shooting and getting replacement parts could take weeks or more. Can you sleep well with that type of a scenario pending at any moment? And if you are going to have a generator backup system then what's even the point of having the solar part at all???

Even if a grid-tie system has a hypothetical 20 or 30 year break even point, consider that people usually reside in a house on average 7 years before moving on. So that makes any potential pay back that much more dubious.

[EvilDrSomkid]

I have also made myself a sun collector to make hot water. It works very well and is cost-effective. It produces daily about 750 liter of water from 65 degrees Celsius (149 Fahrenheit)

Goed gedaan man.

[bkk_mike]

The problem in Thailand is that if you have solar, you can't sell it back to the grid (i.e. have your meter run in reverse like you do in the US/UK/Germany etc.).

That means that whenever you're generating more power than you're using, you need to store it in batteries to use later, when the sun isn't shining, and the batteries aren't very green, don't have a long life, and they screw up the whole cost issue because of the need to regularly replace them.

Until you can sell solar power back to the grid, if you're in an area that's got mains electricity, you will basically never save money with solar here.

There are some things in Thailand where solar makes sense. Basically where something is outside, and doesn't need to be on all the time, but does need to be on fairly regularly. Think water pumps in fields, or on a swimming pool, where it doesn't matter that the pump isn't running 24 hours a day, and you're effectively using daylight in the place of a timer switch. It means there's no battery issue as you're not storing the power. The only other time solar makes sense here is if you're completely off-grid.

The real thing to do though if you're building a new house that would save you energy costs is designing the house from the start to need less energy to keep it cool. Things like using better insulation than is standard here. i.e. Double-glazing is available, but is rarely used. The same goes with high-UV glass, thermal blocks for walls, etc.

Far more likely to get an ROI from designing it to need less airconditioning than on solar panels here (until you can start selling your excess energy back to the grid).

Don't get me wrong - as soon as it's mandated that the electricity company has to buy back your excess power if you have solar panels on your house, solar will take off here as you'll no longer need all the batteries. It won't be a great ROI, but at least it would then make sense. (Electricity companies always pays less for your energy than it charges for theirs.)

If they were to allow selling solar back to the grid,it would also probably reduce the need for new power stations. After all the solar power will kick in during the day, which is probably peak time for electricity usage with all the aircons being used in offices, etc.

[nocturn]

i read somewhere (unfortunately i dont know where) that you can sell back to the grid in thailand, but only so far as to offset your own consumption. once your bill hits zero, you still feed the grid, but make no money off of it.

can anyone confirrm or refute?

[Roymeboy]

Domestic solar energy projects only makes sense when governments subsidize the installation as part of an overall energy policy.

100% correct - if one gets a sunsidy, then it MAY be worth it. Otherwise not. In Thailand anyway. Europe/USA - sunny environments, maybe yes, as electric is BIG $$$$$$. I pay 14,000 baht a month n USA -each month across the year average.