I have a 5,000 watt generator at one of the farms. It is used to run a submersible well pump. The wife has many fruit trees that she waters. Inside the very small house there is a satellite dish, a TV, fan and lights. At first we ran the generator to power those things but the generator is very noisy and uses a lot of gasoline. I have a small solar system there that easily runs those things and the generator is used solely for the well pump so I have the best of both worlds. I had checked out a solar system big enough to run the water pump but the cost was certainly not cost effective. As it is, the generator runs for a couple of hours a week.

We were assured of having grid power there several years ago. The power company won't put in the grid power until there are several house built along the road. People won't build houses until there is grid power. Catch 22.

Barney wrote:Got my new to to buy now.
Will be looking into it when I get back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuZFG1R0hyY

These units come in 2 basic setups.
No battery and installed battery. Non battery produce enough power not to require grid power unless the unit is not producing enough. Battery type is used to supplement for the grid when panels are not producing. Batteries are for evening power. Charging commences in the morning when the panels are opened.
So generally no grid power required.
Yes most likely expensive. But they are not for everyone. Maybe 500,000 to a million baht.
I only posted to show what’s out there. They can charge your electric car.
Plus you can pack it up and take them with you if you move house. No need to worry about roof panels.
I saw them on the beach at Dubai today. Powering beach vendor huts and as a WiFi station and phone charge location.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Barney wrote: ↑

February 25, 2018, 12:26 am

Barney wrote:Got my new to to buy now.
Will be looking into it when I get back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuZFG1R0hyY

These units come in 2 basic setups.
No battery and installed battery. Non battery produce enough power not to require grid power unless the unit is not producing enough. Battery type is used to supplement for the grid when panels are not producing. Batteries are for evening power. Charging commences in the morning when the panels are opened.
So generally no grid power required.
Yes most likely expensive. But they are not for everyone. Maybe 500,000 to a million baht.
I only posted to show what’s out there. They can charge your electric car.
Plus you can pack it up and take them with you if you move house. No need to worry about roof panels.
I saw them on the beach at Dubai today. Powering beach vendor huts and as a WiFi station and phone charge location.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks like the Arabs are learning fast that they have another resource other than oil & gas... that's good, and they can afford solar flowers if they want them.

Anyway, this idea is a helluva lot more practical than solar roadways... what a joke they are.
https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-en ... -fail.html

Bypassing all the marketing blah, blah, blah, output is ~2 to 3 Kw/hr. If it were ~100k thb all-in, I think it would be worth it. But it's far more than that.

https://www.smartflower.com/en/techdata

It seems all the marketing is focused on aesthetics and novelty. Keeping up with the Jones' and whatnot...

There are much cheaper sun trackers available. With two or three regular solar panels, you would get the same or more power for a fraction of the cost. This Smartflower is a nifty device but far too expensive to be practical, $30,000 dollars? I wouldn't want to have to maintain the thing after the warranty expires. Way too many moving parts.

On the beach? I'd hate to think what the salt air would do to the device.

glalt wrote: ↑

February 26, 2018, 9:20 am

On the beach? I'd hate to think what the salt air would do to the device.

Yeah, and the sand getting into all those moving parts, ouch. Anyway, they have the money to do these things if they like. When I said the Arabs were learning, I meant they just signed PPA agreements for under $0.02/Kwh solar. Why waste burning their expensive oil and gas to make electricity, just use solar, and export more oil and gas.

Austin Energy (Texas) just signed (three months ago) a solar PPA for what looks like $0.021/KWh. If you look at the EIA (Energy Information Agency...for decades they always underestimate renewables) levelized cost for coal power generation it is $0.10/KWh. Almost 500% higher cost than solar (of course it is baseload power) but soon solar with storage will be cheaper than coal, if it isn't already. Natural gas LCOE will be about $0.085/KWh more than 400% higher cost than solar. It would seem even Trump and his solar tariff (attempting to injure the industry to help his beloved fossil fuel buddies), can't stop the renewable energy onslaught. This is happening WITHOUT a carbon tax, existing subsidies for fossil fuel interests that amount to 100's of billions every year, and no subsidy for solar (at least this Austin Energy project).

Notice how the EIA has solar power LCOE projected by 2020 to be $0.12/KWh when it is already at $0.02 (at least in the south-west USA) and continuing to fall...

Oh, and with solar prices dropping seemingly to near zero (silicon is pretty cheap after all), if you think Trump's big natural gas deal with China (in the Appalachians I believe) will come through with the thousands of jobs they project.. you might want to think again. Trump is proving himself the idiot savant demagogue. He lead his companies into bankruptcy several times... what the heck, let's do it on a grand scale this time... USA USA USA !!!

I really like wind power. It's not affected by rain or darkness. Unfortunately this area rarely has a decent breeze. Not even enough to stir the leaves on the trees.

I watched a video a couple weeks ago about a small hydro power project. They found a relatively fast moving downhill stream. A concrete channel was dug and a vertical turbine installed. The bottom of the concrete channel was below the depth of the stream. The water going through the turbine looked like a whirlpool. The water was channeled downstream back into stream. It generated a huge supply of electricity. It is a clever idea. No dam required and the level of the stream was not affected.

Another concept was along the coast. A pond was dug on a hill. Water windmills pumped salt water up into the pond. The water went through a turbine returning to the sea.

I still love the solar panels but clouds, rain and darkness shut the system down. Storing the energy is quite expensive.

Is solar plus Lithium-Ion storage ALREADY cheaper than a natural gas combined cycle (highest tech available) power plant?????

I took the Tesla Powerwall 2 spec and pricing and came out with the cost being $0.10/Kwh (worst case, as that was with 10 year Powerwall warranty... to 80% I assume). That is the retail residential customer pricing. I would assume a utility scale system (like what Tesla is doing in Australia now) would come in at least 50% cheaper than that. So, say $0.05/KWh plus %0.02/KWh for installed solar PPA (as in the Austin Energy PPA discussed previously), you come up with $0.07/KWh which is cheaper than the best natural gas technology.

I would not own (for long term investment) any natural gas, oil, coal, pipeline.. heck any fossil fuel investment vehicle, if you know what's good for you No wonder so many institutions are being convinced to disinvest from fossil fuels... they are seeing that is actually a financially astute move and they can get goodwill brownie points to boot.

Sorry... I will stop posting on this for a while... it is just such good news, when all other news (read climate change) is exceptionally bad.

glalt wrote: ↑

February 26, 2018, 12:24 pm

I watched a video a couple weeks ago about a small hydro power project. They found a relatively fast moving downhill stream. A concrete channel was dug and a vertical turbine installed. The bottom of the concrete channel was below the depth of the stream. The water going through the turbine looked like a whirlpool. The water was channeled downstream back into stream. It generated a huge supply of electricity. It is a clever idea. No dam required and the level of the stream was not affected.

I live fairly close to a very large earth filled dam over here in Sakon Nakhon. Every time I drive by it and I see so much power going to waste I just have to sigh, why they can't install some small or even micro-hydro generation there I have no idea. hey TIT

If I had the budget I may think of installing a smart flower or something of a similar engineering equivalent to my new house build. The top model with batteries is a stand alone power source for the home with almost no other power source requirement. You are still connected to the grid, with that, as your back up not the other way around.
Any where from 4000kw to 6000kw per year, plenty to run a average house in Thailand. Not sure how much power costs are Udon per unit.

Smart flower- fully independent supply. No blackouts, no brownouts, no need for UPS systems. Its all inclusive. maintenance costs, Grid for back up when needs require it. Perfect for inverter whitegoods and low power LED lighting. Totally portable for relocation.

Grid power- fully independent supply, Blackouts, brownouts, voltage variance, UPS required. Back up system either, solar maintenance costs required, or generator, ATS or manual changeover required, high fuel and maintenance costs.

Generator only- fully independent power supply. High fuel and maintenance, voltage variance, UPS required. Generators are good for infrequent usage applications.

Being a glass half full guy I can see 100's of applications for the portable smart flower unit or similar product.
If I had the money to invest I can see a definite market for them outside of permanent urban housing use. Probably more than 100's if you think about it.

As I said its not for every one.

All very good but you need a massive battery bank to keep everything working at night?

minimiglia wrote: ↑

February 26, 2018, 4:57 pm

All very good but you need a massive battery bank to keep everything working at night?

Fair comment
I don't know about a massive battery bank but it all depends on what you have plugged in while sleeping. Most of these systems these days will just drain your battery to a designated level, when the Batt low level is reached it will auto cut over to the grid supply only when the need is required as I indicated. This cutover will happen day or night when the unit cannot supply enough power to the end source. Remember all is automatic via a smart system of control. The batteries should have enough power remaining in the morning to open the flower and start supplying electricity again and excess supply to the household requirements will be utilised to charge the batteries.
I am thinking of applications away from households.

No doubt, the Smartflower is quite interesting, BUT, it is too complicated with too many working parts. One problem in the system and you are dead in the water with only the grid. A friend of mine up here had a huge off grid system. He was off the grid and he ran 3 phase machines plus the house. All his panels went through one very expensive charge controller and inverter. All went well for a couple of years and the worst happened. The charge controller/inverter died. He was out of business. By then he had financial problems and couldn't afford a new unit. He could find no one who was capable of repairing his original unit. He ended up selling the farm and everything went with it.

I much prefer a number of smaller systems running different circuits. Spares for small systems are not too expensive and if one system went down, you still have several others still running.

Glalt

I understand your like of your small systems, and certain they suit your requirements. I am in no way debating any one on the forum about pro and cons of any solar system models utilised by individuals, they all have pro and cons and merit. Horses for courses. I'm only opening up discussion in something that interests me and talking about my opinion of something on the market, but maybe it's not available in Thailand yet. Yes there is plenty of room to comment and criticise, that's not a problem.
The moving parts question most likely is real but a lot of engineering would have gone into this prior to release. I'm sure they have parts available and most likely an easy fit. If not included already it will in the future have a mechanical winding system to raise and lower.
In my out of the box vision I can see a huge potential for this or similar portable systems in the future in many remote circumstances where power is required on a temporary basis and costly generators are now used because permanent power is not available.
I would never have this smart flower as a stand alone power source and not have back up. The grid in a normal house is the back up for this unit.
It is unfortunate that your friend was left open to having no power by not having a back up power source, if he didn't have the grid as back up then he most certainly should have had a generator for at least essential and emergency circuits. I'm sorry he had to give it away.

Barney, it appears that you have covered the bases and know what you are doing. If you wouldn't mind spending the money, it may work out very well for you.

Unfortunately my friend's first mistake was to buy an off grid farm. There are people here on the forum who know him so I won't mention any details other than to mention that some bad luck with his operation caused him to become overextended.

22yrs now on solar, on two of my three Pondarosa's, with my Thai wop wops abode yet to succumb to my panelling, but the gear is there..I will just have a dual system, some solar for music, lights, water pump, and grid for fridge, tv, and kitchen whizz
I am not a grid tie man, or a fancy solar flower man, or even a sun tracking man..I have generator backup at two properties and I Just slap the panels flat on the roof, as light is enough for the panels to fire up, you dont need direct sunlight..Mine come on before the sun have come over the horizon
One thing I have learnt of the last two decades on solar, is that there are all these contrapions out there that cost the earth, and start playing up with a year or two of purchase, and you never get your money back..my son had a $90,000 grid tie solar system in Oz, and he had moved on after two yrs to a new location and new house..
keep it simple I say...

Nearing a year, we're looking at (on average) ~250-300 baht savings per panel per month.

Anyone getting better (monthly, on average, per panel)?

ytrewq wrote: ↑

February 27, 2018, 9:52 am

Nearing a year, we're looking at (on average) ~250-300 baht savings per panel per month.

Anyone getting better (monthly, on average, per panel)?

Wow?!?!?! 300 THB / panel / month???
I am averaging about 3.6W/Watt Installed/Day
3.6W * 295W (one panel) * 30 (Days/month) = 31.9KWh / panel / month
32KWh * 4 THB/KWh = 128 THB / panel / month

You must have one hell of an efficient system, or my system is extremely inefficient.
With a standard 300W panel, to get 300W out you need "perfect" conditions. Cell temperature
of 25C (meaning that ambient temperature needs to be far far below 25C), at solar noon,
1 atmosphere (if I recall correctly?).. meaning at equator at or near sea level. The spec of
300W nobody actually uses that figure for actual output. I have a total of 2610 W and I have
only seen my output get to that level or slightly higher two times (both cloud edge effects
on cold but sunny and windy days). Typically in the dry season I might get 1900W at noon because
the cold season here on a sunny day the cell temps still get way higher than 25C (more like +50C).

You must have 2 axis trackers, and some sort of super-cooling system installed to get that kind of
return.

300THB per month is 75KWh/month (from PEA at 4THB/W) from a single panel (300W?)
75KWh/30 days = 2.5KWh per day per panel
2.5KWh/300W (rated panel) = 8.3 Hours at 100% output (300W) every day of the year (even rainy season where typically
my out drops way down)
I must be making a math error somewhere because that just seems impossible... perhaps if the panels are on a satelitte
in orbit geosynchronous with the sun and using a laser to beam the power back to PEA Just kidding.

Glalt or others, can you give chime in here?

Oh, if you are in the "solar rooftop program and getting, what was it, I believe 7 THB/KWh generated, maybe this is doable? Even then, seems unlikely.