Cambodia Will Soon Be a Leading Solar-Powered Nation

This is where our community discusses almost anything! While we're mainly a Cambodia expat discussion forum and talk about expat life here, we debate about almost everything. Even if you're a tourist passing through Southeast Asia and want to connect with expatriates living and working in Cambodia, this is the first section of our site that you should check out. Our members start their own discussions or post links to other blogs and/or news articles they find interesting and want to chat about. So join in the fun and start new topics, or feel free to comment on anything our community members have already started! We also have some Khmer members here as well, but English is the main language used on CEO. You're welcome to have a look around, and if you decide you want to participate, you can become a part our international expat community by signing up for a free account.
User avatar
General Mackevili
The General
Posts: 18400
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 5:24 pm
Reputation: 3397
Location: The Kingdom
Contact:
United States of America

Cambodia Will Soon Be a Leading Solar-Powered Nation

Post by General Mackevili »

Image

Image

Solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building has the capacity to produce up to 135 kilowatts of power per hour of sunlight. The roof above the building’s parking lot is covered with solar tiles, and the product showroom across the road is fronted by even more.

For Star8, the Australia-based company that inhabits this futuristic facility, it stands as a testament to the great potential of solar technology in Cambodia. “The solar radiation here is phenomenal,” says Star8’s managing director Philip Stone. “It will revitalize and bring Cambodia into the 21st century.”

You can’t accuse Star8 of aiming low. Next month, the company will launch its first Asian production hub at this futuristic factory site in Phnom Penh, turning out products like solar panels, batteries, roof tiles, solar glass and a range of innovative sun-powered contraptions.

In the Star8 showroom, icy-cool with air conditioning, Stone shows off the range of products that will soon be produced on-site: unobtrusive batteries, solar-enabled glass and roof tiles that can be substituted for traditional building materials. The company has also developed a flexible thin-film solar panel, a descendent of the tiny solar strips that have been used for years to power pocket calculators. “We’ve developed it, modified it, intensified it,” says Stone, “so instead of just running your calculator from it, you can run your company from it.”

Cambodia is primed for a solar power boom. The power supply is so unreliable and grid electricity so expensive here that the country was one of the fastest adopters of renewable energy sources (mostly hydropower) between 1990 and 2010, according to the World Bank. Add in the sunny tropical climate, and Cambodia seems like the perfect place to harness the sun.

“Cambodia has remarkable potential for solar energy development,” says Rehan Kausar, an energy specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Kausar says the potential is helped by the falling cost of solar technology, which has dropped in some countries to around $0.13 to $0.15 per kilowatt hour — less than the cost of grid power in many parts of Cambodia.

All this offers a possible solution to the power crisis in Phnom Penh, a city where a large recent influx of rural migrants has put great strain on the power grid, resulting in frequent rolling blackouts in the hot season. Stone of Star8 says the country gets 5.5 hours of sunlight per day on average over the course of the year, including the monsoon months, when the weather is often overcast. On clear days, solar panels often begin producing power as early as six in the morning, compared to eight or nine in Western counties. “The solar starts producing at sunrise,” Stone says.

Stone speaks of a future in which everything in Phnom Penh, from homes and small businesses to satellite cities and garment factories, is powered by the sun. If Phnom Penh’s solar revolution ever comes to pass, Star8 will undoubtedly be in the vanguard. Stone shows off the large factory floor where the company will soon employ up to 250 local staff manufacturing its range of solar products. To demonstrate the potential of the technology, production will be completely powered by the sun, and will even push surplus electricity back into the power grid. In a small side-room, a bank of batteries and inverters stands side by side, their green lights blinking, small digital panels recording the oscillating flow of power from the panels.

Parked on the concrete are two prototypes of what might well become Star8’s best-known product: the solar tuk-tuk. Distinguishable from the standard Cambodian variety by its larger frame and quiet engine, the “Solartuk” (available in various models) has a top speed of 37 miles per hour. Prices start from around $2,500 — cheaper than a garden variety tuk-tuk — and financial plans are being readied for tuk-tuk drivers to be able to purchase one of the new vehicles. “We’re going into full production straight away,” Stone says. “We’ve got orders for just over a thousand.” A range of other solar vehicles are also in the pipeline: delivery vans and solar-powered trucks capable of driving 180 kilometers (112 miles) on a full battery.

Star8’s most futuristic plan is to build a solar roadway made of specially engineered slip-resistant glass. Stone says the components are ready, and the company is talking with a developer who owns concessions on National Road 4, the highway linking Phnom Penh to the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville. After building a test stretch of roadway, the ambition is to.....

...click link to continue reading...

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cambodi ... ower-star8

By SEBASTIAN STRANGIO
"Life is too important to take seriously."

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."

Have a story or an anonymous news tip for CEO? Need advertising? CONTACT ME

Cambodia Expats Online is the most popular community in the country. JOIN TODAY

Follow CEO on social media:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Google+
Instagram
User avatar
frank lee bent
Expatriate
Posts: 11330
Joined: Sat May 17, 2014 4:10 am
Reputation: 2094
United States of America

Re: Cambodia Will Soon Be a Leading Solar-Powered Nation

Post by frank lee bent »

I think their solar tuktuks are already in production?
User avatar
StroppyChops
The Missionary Man
Posts: 10598
Joined: Tue May 06, 2014 11:24 am
Reputation: 1032
Australia

Re: Cambodia Will Soon Be a Leading Solar-Powered Nation

Post by StroppyChops »

Thank God they don't go in for hype or exaggeration much. I'm off to buy a solar powered calculator to hook into the grid, I'm going to make a fortune.
Bodge: This ain't Kansas, and the neighbours ate Toto!
User avatar
vladimir
The Pun-isher
Posts: 6077
Joined: Mon May 12, 2014 6:51 pm
Reputation: 185
Location: The Kremlin
Russia

Re: Cambodia Will Soon Be a Leading Solar-Powered Nation

Post by vladimir »

Yeah, I can just see EDC giving up a very profitable business based on the highest electricity cost in SE Asia without a fight.
Jesus loves you...Mexico is great, right? ;)
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Bobby66, Khmu Nation, Moe and 1227 guests