Igor Bubelov

First Harvest

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Part 1

Here are the first results:

Unfortunately, all the cucumber plants are dead, but I’ll keep trying.

The key takeaways are:

Overwatering is a thing. While plants can’t live without water, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Swampy soil causes root rot, which is an untreatable and deadly disease. Tropical rains can be fatal for many plants, so it’s better to keep them under some kind of roof.
Fungal diseases are common in tropics, and you should use fungicide if you can’t control the humidity level.
Most plants don’t mind living with extremely limited sun exposure. I have plenty of plants which get one to two hours of direct sunlight, and they’re doing fine.
Local plant varieties are pretty resistant to long and direct sunlight. I never saw any signs of sunburns on my vegetable plants.
Tomato plants can easily live and produce for a few years in tropics.

Growing Vegetables in Thailand

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Part 2

I started with tomatoes and cucumbers, will see if they survive in tropics.

Living Without an AC

Thu, 11 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I had to live without an AC for a few months, due to some renovation hiccups. Surprisingly, it’s not a big deal even in Thailand. A simple fan and plenty of ventilation can make it comfortable to stay inside a house even when your thermometer shows +35°. A typical fan draws about 50 W at full speed, so you can run it 24/7 and burn just 36 kW⋅h a month, which is about $5, according to local tariff.

I ordered the most power-efficient AC units on the market (SEER ~26, COP ~5), and they should be installed in a few days, but I doubt they will even come close to what a simple fan can provide in terms of price to value.

Energy Bill - Part 2

Fri, 03 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post I mentioned that I was planning to cut my energy bill, and my power consumption target was rather ambitious. I aimed at 5-fold decrease, but it assumed never turning on air-cons, which made me feel uncomfortable, especially at night. That said, I was still able to cut the bill in half without any damage to my quality of life.

The most savings came from not keeping the lights on when it’s not necessary and from using a fan and an open window instead of an air-con in my office. It’s pretty clear that rising energy prices can actually be beneficial because my current bill is even smaller than it was a year ago. Price is a nice signal, and it currently nags us to stop wasting energy.

Energy Bill - Part 1

Tue, 03 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Gasoline isn’t the only thing which is getting more expensive, and I now have to pay almost $0.15 per kWh of electricity, which translates to $200 a month given my current consumption.

I got curious if I can bring my power consumption down and what are the effects of my electronic devices on the total bill. Air-cons were the main suspects, but it turned out that the main abuser is LED light. It might seem impossible, given that LED is advertised as a magical power-saving measure. Well, those lights aren’t that power-hungry, and they consume about 15W each, but there are 26 LED lights in my house, so it can easily add up to 390 kWh.

Next month, I’ll run a little experiment where I’ll try to use fans instead of air-cons. I will also stop leaving lights on when no one needs them. Will see how it plays out, but my rough calculations are promising:

Expected power consumption

If those numbers are more or less correct, I should expect more than a 5-fold decrease in energy expenses.

I remember doing some calculations to figure out the payback period on a solar system in Thailand. Since the energy prices went up, the payback period has to go down, and it did. It turns out there are come upsides in legacy energy sources getting more expensive, it could accelerate our transition to renewable energy. The transition is imminent, and it can be done by the market forces alone, but cheap and widely available government-backed credit can help, I guess.

Solar Panels in Thailand

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I noticed a significant year-on-year increase in the amount of solar panels during my last car trip across Thailand, so I started wondering if going solar is finally became economically viable. Spoiler: it is, but there are some caveats. A 3 kW solar system without battery would cost you about $3,500, and it can cover about 35% of a total power consumption assuming you live in a small house with 3 air-cons, and you work from home so at least one or two of them are always on. For a bigger house, 5 kW system might be more appropriate, and it would cost you about $5,000.

Producing more energy than you consume is currently pointless because the odds are that your energy company won’t buy it from you, so you need to store your extra energy somewhere. Batteries are very expensive, so I won’t even consider this route. My house consumes about 1,000 kW/h of electricity monthly, so a 3 kW solar system is expected to cut my bill by 350 kW/h. Assuming $0.12 per kW/h tariff, the monthly savings would amount to $42, so such a system would pay off in about 7 years. Your mileage may vary, but that seems to be the more or less realistic expectation. It would also be wise to add solar panel maintenance cost (cleaning), which is about $100+ a year.

So, the solar is great and promising, but it’s still pretty expensive. I don’t see a reason to switch to solar now, but I hope it will get cheaper in the future. The price of solar panels has decreased dramatically in the last few years, continuing a decades-long trend.