Micro-Grid conference in France

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Conference manifesto: It is obvious that the conventional electricity grid will not reach the estimated 1.64 billion people in developing countries without access to electricity in the foreseeable future. Renewable energy, and in particular PV, will contribute directly to the alleviation of poverty through the provision of electricity for basic services. However, some innovative solutions still need to be found to combine the access to electricity with a local development, economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. In this respect, the optimal combination of all the local resources must be searched for.

Solar based hybrid systems and mini grids represent one solution able to provide energy service for the population of rural communities, as it has been already technically demonstrated.

At that level of development, feed back from the field is of paramount importance to evaluate issues such as operation and maintenance aspects, social behaviour of end-users.

Furthermore, some innovations are still needed on systems technology (modularity, scalability, &hellip and components (generators, converters, controllers, storage units, &hellip to facilitate the management of several non controllable power units feedinga common small grid.

It will be my pleasure to share with you these new advances towards the development of a competitive offer for rural

- Prof. Dr. Didier Mayer Conference Chairman

3rd European PV-Hybrid and Mini-Grid Conference Start date: May 11, 2006 End date: May 12, 2006 Cost: 550 Euro/person Location: Aix en Provence, France The conference deals with the application of renewable energies and specially PV for the electrification of off-grid sites.