Atternative energy on the rise in Siem Reap as solar saleman signs his very to success.

TWELVE kilo meters from downtown Siem Reap, the Phouy family live in the most popular house in Khwean village thanks to a working black and white television.

though the government provides no electricity to the village and he family’s generator lies broken in a corner, the Phouys have not only a working TV, but also electric lights.

This is because they have a home solar system, and I has changed the way they live, as well as the lives of their friends and neighbors who constantly drop by to watch TV.

“I do not have to spend much time to care for the solar system,” says Phouy Oun, the family matriarch. She nods at the useless generator. “We don not have to spend money on fuel.”

The Phouy’s solar system was purchase from KC Solar, a Khmer purveyor of home photovoltaic (solar) system, solar thermal water pumps and wind generators. founded by environmental entrepreneur Khut chanrith in Phnom Penh in 2006, the company’s 25 employees are spread between offices in the capital, Battambong, Kampong Cham and Siem Reap.

With only three employees and a small office in Siem Reap, the company presence is modest. But that does not seem to bother local sales supervisor Neb Phanny.

After signing on with KCSolar, Neb Phanny broadened his understanding of climate change through the environmental education sessions Khut Chanrith delivers every month when he inspects each of his company’s sites.

Neb Phanny now sells solar modules with the zeal of someone selling a gospel of global consciousness “My product is he environment,” he told the Post, “and I have to sell my product to the people.”

Rural families are Neb Phanny’s primary customers. As opposed to wind generators, which he said are only viable near the sea, and solar thermal water pumps for producing hot water a luxury not much in demand, in his experience electricity that can be produced anywhere the sun shines is a hot commodity.

A major selling point is that his home solar system is guaranteed by a 25 year warranty and requires little maintenance and no fuel. For rural family reliant on gas-powered generators for electricity, solar paneling is an option that effectively costs nothing beyond the initial price of purchase.

But that price is not cheap. The most popular home system costs US$1,200, although the Rural Electrification Fund, a World Bank program, provides a $100 rebate. Neb Phanny conceded that it is well beyond the monthly income of many people, adding that his costumers “are not too rich, not too poor” and that he sells an average of four or five systems a month.

The majority of customers are Khmer, though Western doctors outfitting rural medical clinics are frequent customers, as are Westerners who sponsor Khmer families, like the Australian who paid for the Phouy’s system.

Brian Fox was a member of the Australian Army’s Assault Pioneers serving in the American war in Vietnam. During a Siem Reap holiday in 2005, the Phouy’s second eldest daughter, Mao, sold the Foxes some postcards.

“We bought her postcards the only postcards I bought the whole trip. My wife and I went to the market, bought her some clothes. She gave us a little piece of paper with her email, and so we started emailin.”