Household energy use patterns and social organisation for optimal energy management in a multi‐user solar energy system

Multi‐user systems (MUS) for electrification of rural villages have specific advantages compared with individual systems (SHS). However, as MUS serve multiple consumers, shared energy use presents a challenging problem to the communities. Despite the increased performance of MUS over SHS, they still produce a limited amount of available energy, and users cannot consume as much electricity as they wish without considering the needs of the other users. This means that energy distribution among village residents has to be organised and energy consumption has to be controlled. There are different ways to achieve energy distribution. One possibility is to leave it to the users themselves to organise rational energy use according to their needs and daily routines. For the development of a self‐managed scheme, knowledge is required not only of the users' total energy consumption, but also of their individual energy use patterns. With knowledge of the community's energy consumption habits, rules for adequate energy use can be developed more accurately. The present study describes community energy management in a Cuban village using a central photovoltaic installation. Applying different methods, data were collected in order to identify individual energy use patterns and to investigate how villagers distribute energy and what rules of use are in effect. We wanted to find out whether their energy management leads to well‐adapted energy use patterns and reasonable system performance. The results show that the village residents have developed rules and agreements for coordination of their energy use that have led to good adaptation to the dynamics of energy production. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.