This paper presents the results of a study conducted at a rural (island) community to understand the role
of PV hybrid system installed on an island. Until 2004, most islanders had installed diesel generators in
their homes to generate electricity, which was directly supplied to appliances or stored in the batteries
for later use. A field survey was carried out to study the user satisfaction of the PV hybrid system in the
island community. The attitude of islanders to the PV hybrid system was mostly positive. The islanders
can use more electricity, the supply of which can meet the demand. A comparison of pollutions before
and after installation of the PV hybrid system was made along with the interviews with the users. The
data show that the users are highly satisfied with the PV hybrid system which can reduce environmental
impact, especially air and noise pollutions. New opportunities as a result of access to electric service
include studying and reading at night that were not possible earlier. All the islanders use the PV hybrid
system and more importantly, no one found that the system made their life worse as compared to the
earlier state of affairs.
The installed PV power reported by International Energy Agency
(IEA) at the end of 2005 is 3.7MWand 85% of this capacity has been
by grid-connected application and the rest are by stand-alone
systems in remote/rural areas. PV hybrid systems can be stand
alone or in some instance is grid connected. PV hybrid systems
provide a realistic alternative to diesel generators for electricity
generation in off-grid areas. It has been demonstrated that hybrid
energy system (renewable coupled with conventional energy
sources) can significantly reduce the total life cycle cost of a standalone
power supplies in many off-grid situations, while at the same
time provid