Solar PV: A Promising Solution to Meet Energy Demand in Isolated Communities

The world's population has increased at an unprecedented rate in the history of humanity, to meet energy needs fossil fuels have been used, increasingly scarce, with volatile prices, not to mention all the environmental pollution caused by the use and emission of greenhouse gases. One of the problems of population growth in developing countries is poverty, health and lack of access to electricity, especially in rural or isolated communities. In this work the use of a new source of renewable generation such as photovoltaic solar is proposed, for the specific case of Ecuador the current situation, public policy, regulations and statistics are reviewed together with the SWOT analysis where the privileged position of the sun with respect to the country receiving a high energy potential is highlighted. To complete the study, 4 locations with the highest energy potential are selected according to the Solar Atlas, the simulations are carried out in the PVsyst software to meet a demand of 56.9 kWh mth belonging to a family in a rural community, despite being close to the equator, one of the locations receives 1741 kWhm² mth, while Loja receives 2309.3 kWhm²mth. The study serves as a basis for decision- making and change of the energy matrix, especially for communities that are isolated, being the starting point for its development.