Thailand expects new solar farms to generate $512 mln investment

[webfact]

Thailand expects new solar farms to generate $512 mln investment

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's latest solar energy project is expected to spur investment of around 18 billion baht ($512 million) this year, which should help support the slowing economy, the country's energy regulator said on Tuesday.

Some 67 farm cooperatives along with several listed companies won the right to sell a combined 281.32 megawatts (MW) of solar power to the national grid last week.

The move, after a delay of almost a year, is seen as crucial step for Thailand to go ahead with other renewable energy sources such as biomass in southern Thailand, analysts said.

Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/thailand-solar-idUSL3N17T2AC


-- Reuters 2016-04-27

[daviddabit]

Is there anyone have more information about how to obtain the rights to sell to national grid?

[AlphaSoiDog]

I too would like information.

The research I've done so far suggests that they are only interested in large foreign "investment", like large Chinese and Japanese companies (big tips?). In previous allocations if you produced a maximum higher than about 5Kw (any decent home installation) then you were considered "industrial" and had to compete for approval in their limited allocations against China etc. Good luck...

I gather the allocations are only every year or two and fill quickly. Then, even if you are approved you have to get an "electrical engineer" to approve your particular installation, pay all the required bribes to move paper from desk to desk etc etc. For a small installation that means instead of getting a return after 3-5yrs, it could be never.

Not exactly the much crowed position of "Thailand supports renewable energy". And not too forward thinking given the national reliance on power from other countries.

If the situation has changed for the better please let me know!

[daviddabit]

That's for the information given.. Seems like they are focusing into large investment only.. No chance for small player like me.. Haha... But I will do more research on this. I always interested to do something like this.. The cost of solar panel is not expensive and of course manufacturer of solar panel have better competitive advantage in doing this business..

Will also ask my Thai friend to help to provide info if they have..

[lonewolf99]

Solar Farms.... can't eat electricity as far as I know ?

These are a great idea...lets cut down thousands of acres of trees and lay out panels in the name of Green Energy....brilliant concept.

Currently the real farms in India, Thailand and Cambodia cant grow a bean coz of a water shortage.....it is only going to get worse.

[AlphaSoiDog]

Solar Farms.... can't eat electricity as far as I know ?

These are a great idea...lets cut down thousands of acres of trees and lay out panels in the name of Green Energy....brilliant concept.

Currently the real farms in India, Thailand and Cambodia cant grow a bean coz of a water shortage.....it is only going to get worse.

You appear to be sarcastic about solar energy then tenuously attempt to connect that with another subject.

I'll connect to two in a more obvious way:

Laos makes a lot of it's money selling hydro power to Thailand. Thailand's energy needs are increasing and Laos is currently building a dam in the falls area that is likely to kill the fish that feed millions (the fish are migratory and the "tech" to be used has never been shown to work).

A secondary effect of dams is that by increasing the water surface area a lot more is lost to evaporation. So when it comes to hydro power, more solar cells means more water....

"thousands of acres". That would be quite a solar farm!!! Perhaps you exaggerate a little?

Then of course there are the obvious retorts, it's hard to "farm" on marginal land or on top of buildings, great for solar power though. And, it's not like the locals won't burn an entire national park to grab a couple of ri extra farmland, then destroy it in 3 yrs with contract corn farming (complete with GM corn, fertilisers and poisons that are probably illegal in other countries. All thanks to a few US corps.).

Instead of trying to blame efficient, clean energy production, blame a govt. that hasn't set up to allow it's people to invest in a guaranteed return on something good for the country, but allows destructive farming which includes burning down forests....

[halloween]

Oh please! More surface area means more evaporation, which also means more rain and more solar energy captured.

Hydro power has a few other benefits that don't come with solar, such as availability 24/7, having controllable output which allows it to be used for load following - a capability that makes it much more valuable in the energy market.

[AlphaSoiDog]

Oh please! More surface area means more evaporation, which also means more rain and more solar energy captured.

Hydro power has a few other benefits that don't come with solar, such as availability 24/7, having controllable output which allows it to be used for load following - a capability that makes it much more valuable in the energy market.

You use a dismissing and superior tone but limited science to try to make you point. Please think about what you might not know before rubbishing another.

Additionally your assertion that Hydro power is valuable in no way negates my previous points nor addresses the discussion, try to be relevant. Even your "much more valuable to the energy market" statement is flawed. After baseline power needs are met there is no difference in value at all, and even baseline needs are about to change, see below.

Further commentary on halloween's retort:

Halloween, have a look at how long water vapour has to be in the air before a cloud can form (about 10 days). In this case it means any rain that might form is unlikely to fall on Thailand or it's neighbours.

Then have a look at clouds formed on small particles ("aerosols", such as from burning season). Notice how much longer it takes them to form a droplet size that will precipitate. So long that the cloud can dissipate long before it could rain. Now it's extremely unlikely to rain on Thailand.

There has been quite a bit of study done on this and other hydro issues (e.g. silting), what I've stated barely scratches the surface on hydro power issues.

"solar energy captured"? By a dam? So you are saying that the dammed water is getting warmer, leading to more evaporation, and that that is a good thing?

Lastly, your point about regular power is well taken, even if irrelevant to lack of water and killing off the mekong supply of food or even the value of solar farms for Thailand.

BUT:

Peak power usage is in the daytime when the sun is shining, especially in Thailand. Dams are also a very long term investment and the entire electricity business is about to change. e.g.: this year in the US Tesla cars alone will account for 70GWh of storage and are already set up for allowing 10GWh to be fed back to grid.

I can buy batteries and panels in Australia for an OFF GRID ("24/7" solar power) install, and at current prices it will pay for itself in less than 5yrs ( though actually less due to rising power prices ). 24/7 power production for "baseline power" is now far less important than the damage caused by same.

[halloween]

Oh please! More surface area means more evaporation, which also means more rain and more solar energy captured.

Hydro power has a few other benefits that don't come with solar, such as availability 24/7, having controllable output which allows it to be used for load following - a capability that makes it much more valuable in the energy market.

You use a dismissing and superior tone but limited science to try to make you point. Please think about what you might not know before rubbishing another.

Additionally your assertion that Hydro power is valuable in no way negates my previous points nor addresses the discussion, try to be relevant. Even your "much more valuable to the energy market" statement is flawed. After baseline power needs are met there is no difference in value at all, and even baseline needs are about to change, see below.

Further commentary on halloween's retort:

Halloween, have a look at how long water vapour has to be in the air before a cloud can form (about 10 days). In this case it means any rain that might form is unlikely to fall on Thailand or it's neighbours.

Then have a look at clouds formed on small particles ("aerosols", such as from burning season). Notice how much longer it takes them to form a droplet size that will precipitate. So long that the cloud can dissipate long before it could rain. Now it's extremely unlikely to rain on Thailand.

There has been quite a bit of study done on this and other hydro issues (e.g. silting), what I've stated barely scratches the surface on hydro power issues.

"solar energy captured"? By a dam? So you are saying that the dammed water is getting warmer, leading to more evaporation, and that that is a good thing?

Lastly, your point about regular power is well taken, even if irrelevant to lack of water and killing off the mekong supply of food or even the value of solar farms for Thailand.

BUT:

Peak power usage is in the daytime when the sun is shining, especially in Thailand. Dams are also a very long term investment and the entire electricity business is about to change. e.g.: this year in the US Tesla cars alone will account for 70GWh of storage and are already set up for allowing 10GWh to be fed back to grid.

I can buy batteries and panels in Australia for an OFF GRID ("24/7" solar power) install, and at current prices it will pay for itself in less than 5yrs ( though actually less due to rising power prices ). 24/7 power production for "baseline power" is now far less important than the damage caused by same.

My comment that that capturing rain in a dam means more solar energy captured was off the cuff, and at the very least more accurate than 'more solar cells means more water'. The water cycle exists, and more evaporation means more rain, wherever and whenever it falls. And no, the energy captured is stored as potential energy, not heat.

You seem to have little understanding of how electricity is bought wholesale and how it is marketed. Base load is the lowest price (especially uncontrolled inputs such as solar), a higher price is paid for variable which includes payment for unused spinning reserve, and the highest price is paid for rapidly variable used to cover variations in demand. Hydro is well suited for rapid output change. That higher prices are being paid for solar is a political decision, the extra price being subsidised by other consumers.

If you want to pay AU$10,000 for a Tesla battery plus extra for solar panels, up to you. But you might like to redo your calculation. Peak energy in Oz retails for ~$0.25/kWh, so your 10kWh battery will save you around $2.50/day or $1,000/year.

[AlphaSoiDog]

Oh please! More surface area means more evaporation, which also means more rain and more solar energy captured.

Hydro power has a few other benefits that don't come with solar, such as availability 24/7, having controllable output which allows it to be used for load following - a capability that makes it much more valuable in the energy market.

You use a dismissing and superior tone but limited science to try to make you point. Please think about what you might not know before rubbishing another.

Additionally your assertion that Hydro power is valuable in no way negates my previous points nor addresses the discussion, try to be relevant. Even your "much more valuable to the energy market" statement is flawed. After baseline power needs are met there is no difference in value at all, and even baseline needs are about to change, see below.

Further commentary on halloween's retort:

Halloween, have a look at how long water vapour has to be in the air before a cloud can form (about 10 days). In this case it means any rain that might form is unlikely to fall on Thailand or it's neighbours.

Then have a look at clouds formed on small particles ("aerosols", such as from burning season). Notice how much longer it takes them to form a droplet size that will precipitate. So long that the cloud can dissipate long before it could rain. Now it's extremely unlikely to rain on Thailand.

There has been quite a bit of study done on this and other hydro issues (e.g. silting), what I've stated barely scratches the surface on hydro power issues.

"solar energy captured"? By a dam? So you are saying that the dammed water is getting warmer, leading to more evaporation, and that that is a good thing?

Lastly, your point about regular power is well taken, even if irrelevant to lack of water and killing off the mekong supply of food or even the value of solar farms for Thailand.

BUT:

Peak power usage is in the daytime when the sun is shining, especially in Thailand. Dams are also a very long term investment and the entire electricity business is about to change. e.g.: this year in the US Tesla cars alone will account for 70GWh of storage and are already set up for allowing 10GWh to be fed back to grid.

I can buy batteries and panels in Australia for an OFF GRID ("24/7" solar power) install, and at current prices it will pay for itself in less than 5yrs ( though actually less due to rising power prices ). 24/7 power production for "baseline power" is now far less important than the damage caused by same.

My comment that that capturing rain in a dam means more solar energy captured was off the cuff, and at the very least more accurate than 'more solar cells means more water'. The water cycle exists, and more evaporation means more rain, wherever and whenever it falls. And no, the energy captured is stored as potential energy, not heat.

You seem to have little understanding of how electricity is bought wholesale and how it is marketed. Base load is the lowest price (especially uncontrolled inputs such as solar), a higher price is paid for variable which includes payment for unused spinning reserve, and the highest price is paid for rapidly variable used to cover variations in demand. Hydro is well suited for rapid output change. That higher prices are being paid for solar is a political decision, the extra price being subsidised by other consumers.

If you want to pay AU$10,000 for a Tesla battery plus extra for solar panels, up to you. But you might like to redo your calculation. Peak energy in Oz retails for ~$0.25/kWh, so your 10kWh battery will save you around $2.50/day or $1,000/year.

You really want to turn the OP's request for information into yet another thaivisa stupid argument and put down fest?

Yes, the water cycle exists, but even after I pointed out that you were missing something you still didn't bother to learn more about it. Nor did you research water losses from dams or cloud formation, but instead used your ignorance on these subjects to try to portray me as an idiot.

Incorrect assumptions about prices, I do not need $10k of batteries and where is power only $0.25/kWh? Not here. I can do an install (in Oz) to cover my needs for about $7.5k. I currently pay around $1.5k/yr. Pretty simple calculation. Oh, and you forgot the ever increasing connection fees.

Please stop being defensive about hydro, I like hydro. But hydro that threatens a major food source for multiple countries as well as reducing available water (my original points) is poorly planned and ultimately unnecessary given the changes already starting to happen in the electricity supply business.

I think I've responded to enough of your patronising, and your "science" sprinkled with poorly researched facts irrelevant to the original discussion. Let's just say that you "won" whatever argument you wanted and hope that the next post is something useful to the OP.

I'll tell you what, I'll unfollow this thread so that you can relax and the OP can hopefully get some useful info. I had wanted the same info but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming and this public bickering is pointless. I'd much rather have a friendly argument with you over a beer with a good view where it won't piss off others....