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The Border Green Energy Team (BGET) brings together Karen Thai villagers, Karen IDPs from Burma, and Karen refugees to further the sustainable deployment of renewable energy. The project is based on our team’s experience training and providing solar electric systems for medical clinics in Karen areas of Burma, our experience helping villagers in Thai-side villages in the area to build community micro-hydro systems, and our work training Karen Thai villagers to operate, maintain and repair solar electric systems.
BGET has partnered with the Engineering Studies Program (ESP) school located within the Mae La Refugee camp to to train students in renewable energy technologies and applications. The students have been a vital help on many BGET projects, particularly those located within the refugee camps. Currently, many refugees from the camps are being resettled to Australia, Canada, the US, Sweden, and Norway. While resettlement provides for new opportunities it is also breaking up friendships that have lasted for years. Read about the daily life of some of these amazing students on their personal weblog: http://karenrefugee.livejournal.com/ They are very open to hearing about life in the US and would love to hear from anyone with time and curiousity to write to them.
View BGET's 2006 Report
Learn more about the technical manual for Thai solar electric systems (powerpoint presentation)
The Border Green Energy Team works in a variety of complementary ways to:
- Build a core team of technicians working together in a coordinated manner to enhance the sustainability of thousands of government-installed solar home systems (SHS) in remote communities in Tak province in Thailand. Check out photos from BGET's first training!!
- Use Thai solar home systems as hands-on classroom for high level, real-world training on solar system construction, maintenance, and repair to build capacity of Thai technicians, refugee vocational students, and medics from inside Burma.
- Increase access to replacement parts and reduce bottlenecks to SHS warranty claims for these systems.
- Use low-cost community-based micro-hydro and solar electricity to provide electricity for high-value community applications (clinics, schools, community centers) in villages in ethnic minority areas on both sides of the border.
- Offer periodic trainings to refugees and Internally Displaced People from Burma. Click here for a look at a BGET training in Mae La Refugee Camp.
- Provide support for the Solar Clinic program in Burma. As of February 2006, we have provided 22 clinics with solar power and trained the medics working in these remote clinics for internally displaced people. See the Burma page for more.
 Backround on Solar Home Systems in Thailand
Starting in mid-2004, the Thai government began installations in an ambitious two-year US$200 million program to provide solar home systems to 203,000 remote households, constituting one of the most ambitious solar home system programs in the world.
Of these, an estimated 15,000 are located in Tak province, mostly in the western part along on the Thai/Burma border. The Border Green Energy Team aims to ensure that these systems work in the long term by providing maintenance, repair and user-training for these systems.
Thai government solar home systems are only available for houses with official government registration. This leaves out important non-household load centers including schools, clinics, temples, churches, and other community buildings. It also leaves out households without official house registration. The Border Green Energy Team plans to develop renewable energy (solar and micro hydro) projects in order to light up these community buildings, where electricity is often needed the most.
Three years before the government solar home system program was initiated, Green Empowerment's partner, Palang Thai began working with villages to build micro-hydro systems for community buildings (schools, clinics, temples and churches). Three have been constructed so far. Our latest project generates 1500 watts 24 hours a day for a total cost (not including labor contributions from villagers) of 60,000 baht ($1500). A typical solar home system, by contrast, generates about 1/50th this amount of electricity for the same cost. Reliability and repairability are also high. All systems we built remain functional after several years, and villagers have demonstrated that they are willing and able to make repairs. The arrival of the government solar home system program is complementary to these micro-hydro systems, as micro-hydro focuses on community buildings, while the solar home systems provide electricity for residences. The systems further compliment each other as micro-hydro provides the most electricity during the rainy season when solar panels are least effective.
Border Green Energy Team Composition
The foundation of the program is a team of dedicated, competent local professionals with the skills and resources to repair systems, teach villagers about ways to ensure that their systems last as long as possible, provide services for removing and recycling dead lead acid batteries from villages, helps with warrantee claims, and helps ensure the sustainability of all renewable energy electricity generation within villages.
The project is based out of Mae Sot, Thailand and directed by Salinee Tavaaanan. Salinee was born in Thailand and grew up in Phuket. Having just completed a masters in Solar Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, she has moved back to Thailand to work with renewable energy issues in her home land.
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