Electricity Consumption of Remote Villages in Sarawak Powered by Off-grid Solar System

Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo is still largely covered by dense rainforest over rugged terrain, which brings great challenges to providing 24/7 reliable electricity to communities that are too remote to be connected to the grid. Nonetheless, the Sarawak government is committed to achieving its target of 99% electrification by this year and towards full electrification by the year 2025 through various methods including the off-grid Sarawak Alternative Rural Electrification Scheme (SARES). Through SARES, the most remote rural villages are supplied with centralised solar power systems or micro-hydro solutions. This paper aims to analyse the electricity consumption pattern for 12 selected villages which are powered by off-grid solar systems under the SARES project. The considered parameters include load factor, system's utilisation level, and battery charging behaviour. In addition, the electricity usage behaviour for festive and non-festive days was also compared. It is expected that the findings from this analysis can support the current SARES solar system's design, and better inform the future design for similar user groups.