Isolated Micro-Grids With Renewable Hybrid Generation: The Case of Lençóis Island

In Brazil, around 2 000 000 families have not been connected to an electricity grid yet. Out of these, a significant number of villages may never be connected to the national grid due to their remoteness. For the people living in these communities, access to renewable energy sources is the only solution to meet their energy needs. In these communes, the electricity is mainly used for household purposes such as lighting. There is little scope for the productive use of energy. It is recognized that electric service contributes particularly to inclusive social development and to a lesser extent to pro-poor growth as well as to environmental sustainability. In this paper, we present the specification, design, and development of a standalone micro-grid supplied by a hybrid wind-solar generating source. The goal of the project was to provide a reliable, continuous, sustainable, and good-quality electricity service to users, as provided in bigger cities. As a consequence, several technical challenges arose and were overcome successfully as will be related in this paper, contributing to increase of confidence in renewable systems to isolated applications.