buksida wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2023 9:16 am
The Thai government (which controls the electricity monopoly) does not allow excess power to be fed back, it is illegal here to make your meter go backwards!
Add to that, any new construction, and you'll probably get a digital meter anyway, as we did.
With that, and not using PEA overnight, we upped our ESS with an additional 10kWh battery bank, now 20kWh, of which we use 7-8kWh during the non-producing hours of the day, 14 hrs +/-
Solar feed-in isn't illegal in Thailand, there is a scheme that allows that but apparently it's not so easy to do outside of the Bangkok metropolitan area. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2314858
PineappleHUAHIN wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 4:47 pm
Certain developpments in HH do not allow resident solar power owners to resell or re inject excess power in the general grid of the developpment.
How can they stop you? (unless they switch you from analogue meter to digital but that costs money and project offices don't like spending money). They will also tell you feeding back is illegal, its not. There's even a system to pay you for it. The reason they tell you this is it will reduce the money they cream off the top of your bills. Projects owners don't swan around in Bentleys and new Audi's for no reason. Nearly all projects do it, despite already being declared illegal by the thai courts, so they just filed it under 'admin' - it's a scam virtually all projects are guilty of.
In my time here I've heard of numerous threats along the lines of you can't do this you can't do that from these project offices - most of it is bollox to protect their precious and in some cases, but not all, outrageous 'community fees' - some charge up to 12,000 a month I've heard incl buses you'll never need and gardeners six times a week, plus inflated (illegal) electricity tariffs, I mean everyone needs a gardener six times a week right. It's a racket. You don't even need to pay those community fees at all.
buksida wrote: ↑Tue Aug 15, 2023 9:16 am
The Thai government (which controls the electricity monopoly) does not allow excess power to be fed back, it is illegal here to make your meter go backwards!
No it's not .
They'll even pay you for it though you have to jump through a few hoops to get there.
This is frequently spouted by project owners to put you off denting their illegal gains.
Last edited by Benroon on Wed Aug 16, 2023 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
As mentioned above, only available in certain areas of Bangkok and very difficult to set up, so for 99% of the population it is definitely not an "old wives tale".
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson
buksida wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 1:26 pm
As mentioned above, only available in certain areas of Bangkok and very difficult to set up, so for 99% of the population it is definitely not an "old wives tale".
The old wives tale referred to it being illegal for meters to go back.
buksida wrote: ↑Wed Aug 16, 2023 1:26 pm
As mentioned above, only available in certain areas of Bangkok and very difficult to set up, so for 99% of the population it is definitely not an "old wives tale".
I’m pretty sure you can register with PEA here in Hua Hin to sell your excess power to PEA, unless they stopped offering that program recently. Several years ago when I researched their program, the registration fee was expensive, around 80,000 baht if I recall correctly, then they would buy your electricity for about 1.9 baht per kilowatt hour, which is less than half the price they charge for a kilowatt hour. It’s my understanding that upon signing up for the program with PEA, they replace your meter with a smart digital meter that measures both incoming and outgoing electricity streams. “Turning the meter backwards” is not involved, that’s an entirely different topic, and I’m pretty sure that is illegal. The economics of signing up to sell your excess power (at reduced rate) back to PEA are difficult to justify a major investment in solar, but not impossible. I think the ROI timeframe calculation is different between utilizing the legal, gross metering scheme offered by PEA and the net metering scheme associated with turning the meter backwards. I’d be surprised if the program wasn’t available in every PEA in the country, but I’m just guessing.
The weak link in my small-scale solar power backup system has crapped out after a little over two years - the battery. Car batteries are really not suitable for solar so got one of these badboys from Global House to replace it, they reckon it'll last ten years.
I was in Global in Pranburi a couple of months ago and I was pretty impressed with the amount of Solar equipment they had on display, Thaiwatsuda as well in Cha Am.
A friend bought a house in a relatively new gated community (underground utilities, project power and water.). After having a solar system installed on his roof, he was approached by the manager of the project and informed that he would have to pay the cost of having a digital meter installed to replace his existing analog meter, to prevent the export of electricity back to the grid (turning the meter backwards). He engaged a lawyer, intending to fight it and if the digital meter was a requirement, to force the project to pay for the new meter. The lawyer informed him that he was required to pay to replace the meter, even though the rules of the project don’t mention anything about solar power systems. He was told that PEA owns the meters and it was PEA’s requirement to change the meter. This sounds fishy to me, if they are on Project power, why would PEA own the meters at each house, instead of only owning the single meter where PEA provides power to the project ? My friend was not told exactly what rule or law applied to them, their take-away from the whole exercise is “that’s just the way it is in Thailand”. I suspect we don’t know the details of the whole story, and what we think we understand may not be correct. Does anyone know anything about this situation ?
The cost of the new meter will be about 13,000 baht. Another question, for those that are definitely on PEA power, installed a solar system and then had PEA switch out their meter for a digital meter, did PEA charge them for the cost of the meter or did PEA pay for it ?
I think PEA does own the meters and private householders pay a deposit for them. If you're late paying your electric bill, PEA wastes no time coming around, taking the meter back and cutting you off!
Our solar setup is off-grid so completely isolated and independent from the govt system.
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson
Most of those type of developments also have to pay for a transformer, and as mentioned, after the transformer it is up to the developer to provide sub meters. The PEA MAY insist on a "smart" meter after the transformer, so it needs to established just which type of meter they are talking about, and where it is going to be installed.
The old induction types of meters now have a digital number display, but I am not sure if they can be run backwards?
