factors that influence the choice of technology include customer and load density relative distance to the national or regional grid landscape the availability of natural resources such as wind sun water and forests economic and financial aspects including consumer ability and willingness to pay and the availability and maturity of any chosen technology niez the number of users served might vary from single users standalone system to whole villages minigrids remote sparsely populated andor lowincome regions make grid extension economically unviable and the alternatives provide access to electricity that can be deployed relatively quickly without the need to increase generation capacity