Water and photovoltaics in developing countries

Abstract The development of photovoltaic pumps has progressed during the past 5 years, and this paper is a review of the technical aspects of such installations. Economic and social considerations are given as well as a discussion of the problems associated with each of the possible circumstances (shallow or deep wells, systems with or without electronics etc.). The direct coupling technique is found to have a high degree of reliability and evidence is presented to demonstrate that photovoltaic pumps are competitive with diesel engines for powers of up to 5 kW.