Increased energy demand is the main reason for seeking alternate energy sources. Stringent pollution control norms and shortage of the conventional fossil fuels have forced the mankind to look for economical alternate energy sources on a long-term basis. Among renewable energy sources like solar, wind, biomass, tidal and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) energy generation has gained popularity because of reasons such as simplicity, low maintenance, free from pollution and availability in abundance. This paper presents a technical review of the latest trends in the SPV-diesel hybrid power generating systems.

Over two billion people around the world are deprived of utility electric power (Dennis and Rechard, 1990). It is not economical to extend the utility grid to remote and far-flung places, because of problems like difficulty in operation and maintenance, line voltage drop at the consumer end and low utilization factor.

Even though the cost of SPV conversion technology was very high, i.e., 160 per peak watt in 2005, it is expected to be much cheaper and affordable by the year 2010 (Dennis and Rechard, 1990). Table 1 gives an overview of the various solar cell techniques (Malaviya, 1998).

From the application point of view, hybrid power systems can be classified into two topologies (Saha et al., 1998):

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