A field survey of energy consumption in solar home systems

In this article, the results of a research study with the objective of analyzing the behavior of electric power consumption in solar home systems installed in some rural communities are shown. The random character of that behavior was corroborated and, besides, some factors that influence it were identified. These factors are the following: technical, managerial, psychological, geographical, sociocultural, demographic and economic. It was also verified that this behavior follows the gamma function distribution, in which “a lot of people consume a little, and a few people consume a lot”. The places where the research was carried out correspond to some rural communities of the Amazon, of the Northeast and of the Atlantic Ocean south coast in Brazil, and of Lake Titicaca in Peru.