To date, many traditional Solar Home Systems (SHS) have consisted of separate components which required assembly by trained individuals and were also more susceptible to failure and maintenance. As a result, many SHSs in remote areas have not fulfilled their desired lifecycles or simply have not functioned at all. Thankfully, a solution to these problems has arrived-the newly developed Integrated Solar Home System (I-SHS). Within this new system all components such as the support structure, foundation, PV modules, charge controller, DC-AC converter and wiring are pre-assembled by the manufacturer. Benefits of the new system are ease of assembly and maintenance combined with an associated reduction in cost and failure-critical aspects to consider for remote and impoverished regions. Additionally, electrical yield was increased by 9% by a significant reduction of operating cell temperature. This was achieved by an integrated water tank, serving as a cooling unit and also providing the system's foundation. This measure is neither expensive nor energy intensive, improves output of the system in an unproblematic way and allows for use of the heated water. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.