Research Article Small Scale Rollout of PV Systems in Chikwawa District, Malawi: Remote Monitoring System Effectiveness Million Mafuta, 1 Peter Dauenhauer, 2 and Timothy Chadza 1 1 Electrical Engineering Department, University of Malawi, Te Polytechnic, Blantyre, Malawi 2 Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK Correspondence should be addressed to Million Mafuta; mmafuta@poly.ac.mw Received 19 October 2016; Accepted 22 February 2017; Published 19 March 2017 Academic Editor: Sundaram Senthilarasu Copyright © 2017 Million Mafuta et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Of-grid solar photovoltaic systems in Malawi are deployed increasingly as the primary option for rural public infrastructure such as primary schools and health centres. Overall, grid-connected electricity access has remained stagnant at around 9% with only 1% of rural population connected. To improve the technical sustainability of such systems, a novel remote monitoring technology utilising Wireless Sensor Networks was installed and the systems were monitored over roughly one year. Tis paper has described the technical design, performance, and benefts received from deployment of the technology. Furthermore, it has evaluated the cost implications for a larger scale rollout and potential benefts. We dedicate this work to Mr. McEnroe Mulera who was a great asset to the project and will be missed 1. Introduction Modern energy access is a critical input for economic devel- opment. It was widely regarded as a key enabler to many social development outcomes even before its inclusion as part of the seventh Sustainable Development Goal in 2015 [1]. Te provision of the frst kilowatt of electricity can be transfor- mational for a community, household, or individual which in most cases depends on biomass or fossil fuel energy source. Focusing on electricity access alone, nearly 1.2 billion people lack access to electricity primarily in lower income countries around the world like in South East Asia and Sub- Saharan Africa [2]. In these regions, of- and mini-grids are expected to provide up to 70% of the new electricity access in the rural areas [3]. Tere is a great interest internationally to introduce private market investment and discipline to solve this problem. Tens of billions of dollars is expected to be required to accomplish universal access. Meanwhile, many of-grid projects continue to sufer from sustainability challenges, lowering the potential returns and increasing the risk investments. For example, in a recent review of 23 small scale projects, conducted at the 12–24-month mark, it was found that only 48% were fully functional [4]. Tis echoed by the experience from the World Bank, where, compared to grid extension schemes, of-grid programmes were less successful due to higher costs and lower benefts. Schemes have sufered from technical shortfalls and the economic rationale of pursuing of-grid versus grid extension was questioned [5]. Potential solutions are inherently multidisciplinary. With knowledge of the microeconomics of the individual markets where projects are deployed, the need for skills and a capable organization, and the level of coordination of the national and local governance, can all impact the success of of-grid projects. In higher-income countries, technologies such as Energy Management Systems (EMS) involving Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) have been deployed since the 1960s and can therefore be considered mature [6]. For a variety of reasons, such as cost and design for higher voltage grid infrastructure, these technologies are not imme- diately applicable to an of-grid developing country context. Te rise of smartphones, cloud computing, and relatively robust networks in developing countries [7] has created a new opportunity for of-grid system monitoring. Tis paper Hindawi Journal of Solar Energy Volume 2017, Article ID 9583860, 21 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/9583860