Salinee Tavaranan

Salinee Tavaranan is a Thai mechanical engineer who specializes in solar power and other forms of sustainable energy. She is the project director of Border Green Energy Team (BGET) and the CEO and founder of the company SunSawang, making green energy systems available to remote populations.

Education Tavaranan was born in about 1978 and she grew up on the island of Phuket, located in southern Thailand. She received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand in 2001. One of the reasons for training local villagers is that areas may not be reachable in the rainy season.

In March 2013, Salinee Tavaranan created her startup SunSawang to provide maintenance services for solar powered systems. The company recruited and trained technicians to maintain the equipment provided by the previous government initiative. Expensive photovoltaic panels are generally salvageable and are reused with relatively inexpensive components Initially higher starting costs are balanced against lower ongoing costs by offering five-year payment plans. In 2014, the company focused on working with inhabitants in the Tak region, an area of forests and national parks near the Thai-Burmese border.