Solar System for Home Use in Cambodia

[Prolecs]

Can anyone enlighten us on home solar systems in Cambodia?
Like:-
what are the Gov regulations?
cost of say a 5kW system?
cost of battery say 5kWh?
installation cost in PP?
any Gov subsidy?
who sells in PP?
who installs?
<9% of Cam energy gained from solar (2022).
It seems a missed opportunity not to encourage homeowners to assist themselves and the countries imports/pollution situation.

[khmerhamster]

Search on Facebook for solar Cambodia. You’ll quickly get deluged with adverts.
Costs are changing all the time and different options available on grid / off grid / hybrid with different costs for each.

I checked last year for my home - was going to cost around 8,000 installed for a hybrid 8kW system. Probably a 5-7 year payback. But when you have ‘free’ electricity then your habits change so the payback is hard to calculate.

No subsidies available and no buyback from EdC they suck up your excess electricity generated with not so much as a thank you.

[Doc67]

Search on Facebook for solar Cambodia. You’ll quickly get deluged with adverts.
Costs are changing all the time and different options available on grid / off grid / hybrid with different costs for each.

I checked last year for my home - was going to cost around 8,000 installed for a hybrid 8kW system. Probably a 5-7 year payback. But when you have ‘free’ electricity then your habits change so the payback is hard to calculate.

No subsidies available and no buyback from EdC they suck up your excess electricity generated with not so much as a thank you.

Are these systems capable of running an AC unit? What about fridges and freezers? What happens at night with an off grid system, do you have to plug the appliances back into the grid or will the battery keep things powered?

[khmerhamster]

Search on Facebook for solar Cambodia. You’ll quickly get deluged with adverts.
Costs are changing all the time and different options available on grid / off grid / hybrid with different costs for each.

I checked last year for my home - was going to cost around 8,000 installed for a hybrid 8kW system. Probably a 5-7 year payback. But when you have ‘free’ electricity then your habits change so the payback is hard to calculate.

No subsidies available and no buyback from EdC they suck up your excess electricity generated with not so much as a thank you.

Are these systems capable of running an AC unit? What about fridges and freezers? What happens at night with an off grid system, do you have to plug the appliances back into the grid or will the battery keep things powered?

A hybrid system is what you want for home use.
It charges the battery from unused solar generated lecky during the day. Then the battery drains from your usage at nighttime, if you need extra then the mains will top up.
An 8Kw system should run all household appliances plus several aircons

[ressl]

As far as I remember (the info might be outdated), the EDC is making a serious amount of trouble for private and small scale commercial operated solar farms. One of the reasons, why NONE of the garment factories (or any other company/shopping mall/place, that has a big roof) has solar on its roofs, which is usually common these days.
From the technical side, a 5kW system should fine for one (!) A/C, a fridge, some lights and a mobile phone charger, but, as others mentioned already, you need a storage for the energy

[stevenjb]

My brother in the States has an interesting solar setup on his house. No battery. The solar generated is sold back to the utility company and in-turn they give him a credit on the electric bill. His electricity payment is around $15/month on a 2,000sq ft house (of course there is the financed payment for the solar equipment)

[rogerrabbit]

As far as I remember (the info might be outdated), the EDC is making a serious amount of trouble for private and small scale commercial operated solar farms. One of the reasons, why NONE of the garment factories (or any other company/shopping mall/place, that has a big roof) has solar on its roofs, which is usually common these days.
From the technical side, a 5kW system should fine for one (!) A/C, a fridge, some lights and a mobile phone charger, but, as others mentioned already, you need a storage for the energy

Pretty sure that is outdated. I have heard the same thing multiple times, but several factories actually do have extensive solar installations on their roofs now days. All the Aeon malls do as well. Aeon Mean Chey, for example, has pretty much all its roof space covered with panels. They have a 1.9 MW solar system according to this article.

[newkidontheblock]

I have solar panels on my house in Texas.

It’s a hybrid that can supply the house directly on solar and feeds the excess into the batteries. At night the house is powered by batteries and draws from the grid with there isn’t enough to meet needs. Excess is sold to the power company. The price of the excess is at a much lower rate than what the company charges, however.

During the winter months, I’ve paid up to six hundred on electricity, primarily for electric heating. The house is designed for hot weather with super high ceilings, not for the cold.

The upfront cost for solar panels plus batteries is high, the cost of a cheap house or expensive car.

Also, the aircon is whole house and each unit needs a capacitor to achieve the required surge power to start. The new Gen 3 Tesla battery already provides enough surge and no additional is needed. (Didn’t exist at the time.)

I bought it not for energy savings, but for the hurricanes and storms that can knock out electricity and disrupt gas lines, requiring days to weeks to fix. Peace of mind that pays for itself in 6-10 years.

In Cambodia, aircon (inverter room units) is less, electric needs are less, so installation costs will be way less. Multiple batteries make it a hedge against the day long power cuts and is less polluting and noisy than a gas generator.

Just my opinion.

[Bluenose]

As far as I remember (the info might be outdated), the EDC is making a serious amount of trouble for private and small scale commercial operated solar farms. One of the reasons, why NONE of the garment factories (or any other company/shopping mall/place, that has a big roof) has solar on its roofs, which is usually common these days.
From the technical side, a 5kW system should fine for one (!) A/C, a fridge, some lights and a mobile phone charger, but, as others mentioned already, you need a storage for the energy

Retrofitting solar panels to factories roofs is not always possible, the load works out to about 12-14 kgs per sq meter, so even just a 20x40m factory will be having 10 tons or more plonked on the top. I'm not sure that much redundancy is built into structures here...

[khmerhamster]

On grid systems are cheaper. They don’t store the energy, so you have free electricity from 6am to 5pm, and they use grid power.
However a big negative for them, certainly for their earlier systems - but maybe the newer ones have resolved this - is that they don’t work during a power cut!
Apparently they need a trickle from EDC at all times for some safety reason. I found this out the hard way - no one thought to mention this during spec or install. Just a few weeks later we had a power cut and the whole system shut down. I was more than a little upset.