Integrated Renewable Energy Systems for Off Grid Electrification of Remote Rural Areas A. B. Kanase-Patil*, R. P. Saini and M. P. Sharma 1 Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India ABSTRACT Substantial proportions of the worlds poor live in remote rural areas that are geographically isolated and are often too sparsely populated or have a very low electricity demand to justify the extension of the grid. In developing countries like India, most of its population lives in rural remote areas with no grid electricity, which is the main obstacle in the development of such areas. Hence, it is necessary to supply the renewable electricity to these areas in decentralized mode. Renewable energy sources are the least cost and most feasible solutions, as these are unlimited, inexhaustible and environmental friendly sustainable resources. The remote rural villages have substantial renewable energy resources, like biomass, solar, wind, hydropower etc. Different manifestations of solar energy (wind, hydro, biomass etc) are highly variable and site specific. The problem caused by the variable nature of these resources can be partially overcome by either installing individual large renewable power plant, or adding energy storage and reconversion facilities and/or by integration. To meet the energy demand of a rural area, Integrated Renewable Energy Systems (IRES), may be proposed. This paper reports the economic aspects of a typical Integrated Renewable Energy System for remote rural area in India. The model is developed with the objective of minimizing cost function based on demand and potential constraints. The model has been optimised using LINGO software 10.0 version. For isolated distribution network analysis ViPOR software version 0.9.23 used. Keywords: Integrated Renewable Energy Systems, off grid electrification, remote area power generation, power generation economics, optimisation methods. 1. INTRODUCTION Substantial proportions of the worlds poor live in remote rural areas that are geographically isolated and are often too sparsely populated or have a very low electricity demand to justify the extension of the grid. In developing countries like India, most of its population lives in rural remote *amarbkanase@yahoo.co.in &