Thailand's businesses go solar

Nonthaburi, 14 June 2017 – The times where solar energy was considered expensive are long gone. “We are now using solar power to lower our production costs. I was surprised myself, but it simply makes economic sense to go solar!”, said Mr. Phairat Ueshooyos, Chairman of Star Aire (Thailand) Co., Ltd., at the inauguration of the company’s new solar power system. Star Aire is directly consuming the green electricity produced on site instead of buying electricity from the public grid. The one megawatt generation facility saves the company approximately 500,000 THB (~ 15,000 USD) every month even without any specific government subsidy for solar energy. The seven year payback period of the system was reduced even further to 3.5 years using only a general industry tax exemption mechanism that Thailand is offering to promote investment in different sectors.

What is true for the Star Aire factory applies to many other businesses across Thailand. Largely unnoticed by the general public, solar energy is now proving its economic viability in the commercial and industrial sectors: solar energy is competitive today. “Recently we received a lot of requests from industrial and commercial clients that want to use solar to power their production sites,” says Apilak Ketmanee Managing Director of BISReZeca, the system integrator of the Star Aire solar power plant. “They don’t want to miss out on this opportunity to save money and help mitigate CO2 emissions.”

The solar energy system in Nonthaburi features components made in Germany, which benefit from an excellent reputation and ensure longevity of the system. BISReZeca and Star Aire paid a lot of attention to select the right partners and components. Thai installation know-how combined with German components is a recipe for success and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH will monitor the performance of Star Aire’s solar system to track how much solar energy is produced. The project owner and developer are convinced that more solar systems will be installed in Thailand in the coming months and years.

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