A wind-energy plant in Pattaya could be the harbinger to many more across the country

Published on September 23, 2007

Pattaya's Koh Lan community will soon rely on the wind to supply some of its energy requirements. It will be the first wind-energy plant developed by Thai technologists tailored to suit local climate and weather conditions.

After eight months of hard work, 45 sets of wind turbines with 4.5-kilowatt (KW) capacity each have been installed. Dr Weerachai Ruaynarin of Rajamongkol University Thanyaburi, who designed and developed the plant, says test runs are being conducted now and the turbines will be fully operational in a month.

"The Bt84-million wind plant will be able to generate enough electricity to light up 100 houses all day long, with around 200 kilowatts of installed capacity.

"It might not be a sizeable part of the island's electricity consumption but it could solve the problem of erratic electricity supply in the island today, which has been responsible for the shorter life-span of electric appliances," he says.

"It will be a new tourist destination and landmark for Pattaya, while promoting the city's green energy policy," Pattaya's Deputy Mayor Royankij Akasing told The Nation.

"The real value of this project is in its educational purpose. It will have a great role in raising public awareness in this renewable and clean energy source. It will also serve as a site for visiting and training students in wind-energy engineering and operation," Weerachai says.

Koh Lan resident Anan Phuttha, 42, who owns a seafood restaurant on Samae Beach, said villagers on the island are excited about the wind turbines but there are doubts about their benefits to the locals.

"Many villagers still cast doubt over how much it could benefit us. As for me, I have no doubts as I had direct experience of it," he says.

Anan's restaurant was selected a year ago as a pilot site to test the wind-turbine technology on the island. Lighting at nine shelters on the beach belonging to his restaurant use electricity supplied by a wind turbine nearby.

'When there are strong winds, we can use electricity directly from the turbine all day long," he says. "But if wind speeds are low, we can use it for at least 10 hours a day and draw the rest from a battery that has stored energy from the wind earlier. Totally, I can save over Bt1,000 per month on my electricity bill."

"Wind energy is new to the Thai public but more and more people are getting familiar with it now," says Weerachai.

Apart from Koh Lan, Weerachai says that he is developing wind turbines of greater capacity for three other organisations - three 5KW turbines for the Energy Ministry's royal project, one 50KW turbine for the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) for installing at Lamtakong Dam in Nakhon Ratchasima and another 400- and 1,000-watt turbine for his office at Rajamongkol University Thanyaburi.

This is just part of the increasing development of wind energy in Thailand, says another key wind-energy developer, Banjong Khayankij.

"Based on my own experience, local communities and organisations around the country have been using wind energy for their specific purposes for almost five years without state recognition officially," he said.

Banjong, a worker at Chon Buri's Burapha University and a self-taught wind-energy developer, says he has transferred his wind-turbine technology to hundreds of people during the past five years, generating about 500KW now.

Lost of Banjong's turbines are small-scale and aim to provide wind energy for community activities. They are made with local materials and require far lower investment compared to those developed with market technology.

"I think it goes along well with the sufficiency economy principle. My concern is not with the scale but applications. If people want energy for pumping water, what they need to do is learn about the wind situation in their place and then look for local materials while learning to produce the turbine from me and then doing it themselves. In this way, they are able to make the right size of wind turbine within their budget," Banjong explains.

"The key is to focus on small-scale turbines with a variety of applications, not to head for large-scale machines generating electricity for commercial sale, which might not be appropriate for the Thai climate," he says.

Banjong dreams of promoting much more wind-energy use in Thailand, with the country generating at least 100 megawatts by the year 2011. This will require the state, industry and universities joining hands and developing the technology both for domestic use and export, he says.

Banjong's hope might no longer be a dream going by the number of projects he is involved in.

"Once I became well-known among Net citizens and the public after a TV programme aired my story, more and more people came to me, including poor people who walked on bare feet, and the rich who drove expensive cars. Many students and teachers from different vocational schools and colleges asked for my advice on www.ThaiWindmill.com" says Banjong.

He has been approached to help the military develop a wind farm project in Chiang Mai's Fang district, he adds.

What is missing is a nation-wide survey on the real potential of wind energy, which could provide specific site suggestions scientifically.

"Today, we have only a general map of wind potential, which does not help much to select the site," he explains.

"I have heard that the government has plans to install one wind-measuring station in every province. This is a good idea but it still needs at least five years to gather 24-hour data to assess the real potential of each province," he says.

Most of all, Banjong says he would love to see real political will from policy-makers.

"Today's policy-makers are hypocrites. It is like they shout 'you are welcome' in front of a 'military zone, no entry' sign. While the state says it promotes wind-energy development, it is a complicated process and costly for any wind-energy developer to link the surplus energy to the grid system of Egat," he says.

Weerachai says his greatest concern is the shortage of human resources for wind-energy development.

"I am the only PhD on wind-energy engineering today. We might have some wind-energy academics but not engineers. If we want to promote this clean energy seriously, we need at least 100 experts like me and another 100 related engineers within five years," the expert said.

Thailand kicked off the study of wind-energy development 24 years ago in 1983, followed by installation of a wind turbine pilot plant on Phuket's Phromthep Strait in 1992. It later added a solar-cell generator to help improve efficiency of its electricity generation and finally added bigger wind turbines due to technical problems in maintenance of the previous turbines. It's total installed capacity is 180KW.

Globally, Europeans are the major users of wind energy, with a total installed capacity of24,904 megawatt.In Asia, China and India are starting to tap wind energy. India has an installed capacity of 1,500MW while China is waking up with today's capacity of 468MW and plans to reach 20,000MW in 2020.

In Thailand, apart from Phuket's pilot plant of Egat and the wind-power potential study by the Energy Ministry, there has been little effort from the state in promoting wind energy during the past decade. The Science Ministry recently agreed to provide scholarships for PhD students to study wind energy abroad. However, it will be three to five years before they graduate and make their knowledge available.

Kamol Sukin

 The NationMore to follow next Jounal, sleeply now   

Thanks Bruce. Informative as usual. 8)

Thanks for info. : D

"Thai Bay"??? Does he mean the Gulf of Thailand or is there some bay that I've never heard of?

I drove around over there and asked the guy doing the servicing how much one tower generates. "Mai roo" :-).

But it's a great initiative and there's a great track that winds all around the mountain over there with beautiful views of both the island and the Pattaya bay.

And I that all the wind power in Thailand came from Thaksin Shinawatra and his cronies :-)

Thailand politicians love these projects... more money to skim.

Appreciate comments, the Danish company Intertec Wind A/S is in cooperation with Danish DC Enterprice ApS going to build three windmill parks in Thailand for an estimated sum of 14.6 billion Thai baht.

Since our Wind project became public knowledge in Thailand, we have had several inquiries from potential investors who have shown a great interest in participating in our projects.?

However, will Thai Gov. clean-up their act and steam-line the complex foreign investment process. Also, EGAT will need to do their part and build up the electric Grid to accommodate big Wind, Solar, and Geothermal projects. So far EGAT has been ambivalent toward the expansion of Renewable generated electricity in Thailand.

International investors are willing to invest billions in Renewable power plants for Thailand. The question is, will Thailand's polticians and corporate "elite" allow it?

I belived you are the economist, chai mai?

Bruce551

that is awesome

Hi Bruce, good issue. Guess you are involved in that project. Happy to here that the Danish side is pushing this project and probably funding the required pre-studies! Problem in most projects are the political willingness to commit to the most experienced company which is mostly not the cheapest , same way it always appears a political attitude as let's try to find a cheaper one somewhere or we can do it by ourself (of course there is then no more a cost discussion!) or where are our benefits when we have to pay a foreign company!

I have seen that for years in the environmental business and it prolongs, kills the most projects or you have a not working, local scrap project!

Cheers

Chai, Khun Soda, IMHO the economics of Renewable Energy are, the more RE generation there is the less it costs. RE costs are predicable because the fuel is free.

The economics Fossil fuels are, the more you use the more it costs. Renewable Energy power generation displaces fossil fuel consumption and tends to stabilize the price swings of fossil fuels, therefore lowering fossil fuel prices.

Investors are keen on RE because the costs & profits are predicable, not subject to supply and demand price swings or political uncertainty (terrorism).

These are not my ideas, I give credit to the book " Earth in the Balance, Ecology And The Human Spirit", by Al Gore

Hi Bruce, the economics are one side if understood by the system lobbyists! Environmental benefits in reducing CO2 and slow down climate changes and unpredictable repair cost (if there is a chance) as well as costs to sustain livable conditions for human beings are the other side. Avoiding social uproar world wide and the damages out of it cannot be calculated!

Cheers