| There are a wide variety of situations in which small amounts of electricity are needed and the electric utility grid is not practically available. Photovoltaics alone or in combination with wind turbines and small fossil-fired generators can be used to meet these demands. There are few available guidelines for choosing the combination of power sources that will result in the lowest total cost over the life of the project.; This paper examines the most cost-effective combinations of components that can be used to meet small loads. These loads range in size from 1 kWh to 60 kWh per day, and encompass load shapes that represent a variety of applications, including providing power to small villages or households, meeting constant loads such as water treatment, and providing power during the day only, as for microenterprize. These analyses also consider a variety of cost, resource and reliability scenarios.; The results of these analyses indicate that the small loads considered can be most cost-effectively served by photovoltaics alone under specific circumstances: when wind resources are poor; when cost is a higher priority than reliability; when the load correlates well to the amount of sun available; and when not in high latitudes.; These analyses also indicate that these loads can be met most cost-effectively by photovoltaics in combination with other sources of power under a broader but overlapping set of circumstances: again, when wind resources are poor; when reliability is a lower priority than cost; and when electricity is needed 24 hours per day. |
