Pa Deng’s people make a happy family by relying on themselves as much as possible.
Remote and mountainous, Pa Deng is an area in which your mobile reception will be completely lost, but in this Kang Krachan, Phetchaburi, neighbourhood, a telephone service is not the only thing locals have no access to. Five out of 10 villages have no electricity.
Though living without communication technology, Pa Deng is recognised as a community that uses renewable energy from two main sources: solar cell and biogas. Even though not every household implements the clean-energy approach, Pa Deng has become a model community, self-dependent for its energy. Pa Deng is also among the model neighbourhoods visited by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Thailand since the organisation determined to make the country entirely reliant on renewable energy by 2050.
Before Pa Deng tried their hands on renewable energy, benzine and diesel fuel had been an important commodity, as it was mainly for power generation. But obviously, the use of such fuel brings with it high monthly household costs. Kosol Saengthong, one of the locals, believed there should be a way to tighten the purse strings, so he formed a team of other locals to find better alternatives.
“Our goal was actually as simple as making a happy family. We wanted to rely on ourselves as much as possible so that we would have our own food to eat and energy to use,” recalled Kosol, head of the Ruam Jai Tam Roi Por Network.
The group looks into encouraging people in the community to turn to renewable energy. Its approach includes improving human resources by sending them to workshops and conferences relating to renewable energy, applying HM the King’s sufficiency economy philosophy in real life by raising chickens for eggs and producing their own toiletries, and a welfare fund for those in need of assistance. A part of the fund comes from members, who pay 1 baht a day in advance for six months.
“Technology is definitely important for us, but not as much as everyone’s enthusiasm, which is what will take us to success,” said Kosol.
Currently, about 20% of Pa Deng consists of members of this network.
“Most of us here make a living through farming, so we want to see if it’s possible to make use of biogas released from organic waste,” said Kosol. They experimented a lot before finding a way to produce biogas by putting different types of waste into balloons so that they released gas. Their initial budget came straight from their own pockets but later they received supporting funds from the United Nations and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation.
Kosol Saengthong.
The experience has been hit-and-miss. While biogas tanks sold in the market come in only one size, 4,000 litres, and are quite pricey, they later discovered their own way of producing biogas tanks. They went to a canvas shop and picked durable polyester, then had it tailored to the desired size. The 4,000-litre tank is for household use, while the 15,000-litre tank fits perfectly in a communal area. This innovation is not just their masterpiece but their income source, as they have since made them for sale to other communities.
“Once we started to gain experience, we wanted to get more knowledge and discovered that there were so many things we can do to make our life better,” said Kosol. Gasification, a process of quickly converting organic fuel into gas, is another green method successfully implemented in Pa Deng. This method generates gas much faster than the balloon approach. It’s used when locals are in urgent need of gas.
Apart from using biogas for cooking, people came up with an attempt to generate electricity from the gas which was successful despite its inapplicable use. They ended up realising that when it comes to electricity, solar cells were the best choice.
Fortunately, a number of families in Pa Deng have already had solar-cell panels allocated to them by the 2003 Solar Home Project under the Thaksin government (the project provided solar cell panels to every household with no access to electricity). However, the problem was that the panels were often broken and each repair cost 500 baht. Locals therefore often left them untouched.
With people’s keen interest in renewable energy, however, in the end they discovered a way to fix the broken solar cell panels themselves at a cost of only 13 baht.
“Our group charges 20 baht if someone else needs our service. The revenue then goes into the energy fund, which will be used for tools and equipment for generating renewable energy,” said Kosol.
Apart from electrical appliances used in households, solar cells can also be applied to work with agriculture water pumps.
Suthee Tuamyai, a 39-year-old member, said that since renewable energy has become the main source of power in Pa Deng, his life has become easier.
“I’ve been using this system for five years. It’s a one-time investment. Then it’s pretty convenient for the rest,” explained Suthee, who uses solar cells at home to generate electricity for his television, fans and lighting. He sometimes uses biogas for cooking.
With all the knowledge he’s accumulated, Suthee is one of the important human resources to bring in income to the energy fund from helping other people install or fix renewable-energy equipment.
But for the people of Pa Deng, the pathway to renewable energy is not clearly paved.
“For instance, the basic requirement for solar cells is to get sunlight for at least five hours a day. But if some days we know there won’t be enough sunshine, we have to adapt ourselves by using LED bulbs or use flatscreen televisions, given these devices consume a lot less energy,” said Kosol.
In all, their attempt is environmentally-friendly. The high-carbon fossil fuels used in many parts of the planet are harmful to the environment, but using biogas helps eliminate the methane gas that harms the atmosphere.
“Normally, methane, one of the main greenhouse-effect gases, is released from fermentation, but if we can use it, such as in this case turning it into a gas used for cooking, it could definitely help save the environment,” noted Kosol.
“The world gives us enough renewable energy from sunlight, water and wind to energy from biogas and biomass,” he added. “There is no need to wait until we get into trouble. Anyone from anywhere can start doing it now.
“For us here in Pa Deng, we can rely on ourselves to a certain extent. We have enough food to eat and enough energy, so it’s not hard for us to be happy like others. And I believe our livelihood will be even better in the future.”
Suthee Tuamyai gets power from solar panels.
Tailor-made polyester biogas balloon tank.
Solar panels.
Egg-laying chickens.
Food scraps make good material for generating biogas.
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.