Integrating Clean Energy in Small Island Power Systems: Maldives Experience

Providing affordable, reliable clean electricity supplies is a major challenge small island nations face due to factors such as dispersed nature of their population in small individual islands, heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels for power generation and absence of economy of scale. The paper discusses the design of hybrid diesel-solar photovoltaic systems with energy storage with a sample involving five islands in Maldives. The study has shown that implementation of diesel-solar PV hybrid power generation systems with storage in small island countries increase energy security and they are economically and environmentally attractive.