Renewable Energy for Sustainable Rural Village Power

It is estimated that two billion people live without electricity and its services worldwide. In addition, there is a sizeable number of rural villages that have limited electrical service, with either part-day operation by diesel generator or partial electrification. For many villages connected to the grid, power is often sporadically available and of poor quality. The United States NationalRenewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, has initiated a program that involves hybrid systems, to address these potential electricity opportunities in rural villages through the application of renewable energy technologies.1 The objective of this program is to develop and implement applications that demonstrate the technical performance, economic competitiveness, operationalviability, and environmental benefits of renewable rural electric solutions, compared to the conventional options of line extension and isolated diesel mini-grids. Hybrid systems are multi-disciplinary, multi-technology, multi-application programs composed of six activities, including village applications development, computer model development, systems analysis, pilot project development,technical assistance, and Internet-based village power project data base. While the current program emphasizes wind, photovoltaics (PV), and their hybrids with diesel generator, micro-hydro and micro-biomass technologies may be integrated in the future. Thirteen countries are actively engaged in hybrid systems for rural and remote applications and another dozen countries have requestedassistance in exploring wind/PV hybrid systems within their territories. At present rural/remote site application of renewable technologies is the fastest growing aspect of renewable energy worldwide.