Phi Suea House’s Better Energy Storage System
The sun shines more than 300 days a year in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Hamburg entrepreneur Sebastian-Justus Schmidt says, “it is the perfect location for a solar energy system.” His Phi Suea House’s solar panels produce 6,000 kWh a month, enough to power 20 to 25 average North American households. Though the first three residences in this development went online last March, it officially opened January 29. The most revolutionary aspect of this development is the hydrogen electrolyser in Phi Suea House’s better energy storage system.
“We got the idea to use hydrogen storage from pilot projects in the telecommunication industry. They used a system like this to supply power to communication masts. In many applications, it is more efficient than the battery systems that are available,” he said. Though Schmidt is aware that his technology has an incredible potential for grid applications, his focus is off the grid. Phi Suea House incorporates most of the usual elements of a environmentally friendly lifestyle (rain-water collection system, green building designs, home automation, etc), as well as solar panels that produce all of the electricity need for the residences, a water storage reservoir, big gardens, workshops, and a pool. Schmidt said there is usually 10-20 kW of excess energy by the end of the day. If he were in Europe or North America, his system would be feeding electricity to the grid.
Unfortunately Thailand is not yet ready for solar projects of this size. The country does incorporate smaller rooftop systems, but does not offer incentives. As few Thais are wealthy enough to wait seven years for their system to pay for itself, the nation’s vast solar potential is largely undeveloped. Schmidt says that even in the rainy season, Thailand has a lot of sunshine.
