Smart Integrated Renewable Energy Systems (SIRES) for Rural Communities

More than one billion people are living in energy-deprived rural areas of the world with little or no access to basic energy and other needs. In this work, a Smart Integrated Renewable Energy System, or in short "SIRES", is proposed to "energize" the rural areas and not just "electrify" them. It is a viable and effective strategy to provide basic needs such as biogas for cooking, water for domestic and irrigation purposes and electrical energy for lighting, communication, cold storage, educational and small-scale industrial purposes, by smartly matching them to available resources. It will promote sustainable socio economic development and improve the living environment by fulfilling the fundamental energy requirements with the help of low cost renewable technologies and intelligent energy management systems.