In several of the remote areas of Morocco, diesel generators are used to provide electrical power. Such systems are often characterized by poor efficiency and high maintenance costs. The integration of wind turbine with a diesel/battery hybrid system is becoming cost-effective in windy locations. In previous works (Nfaoui et al, 1990, 1994a, 1994b), the wind characteristics in Tangier-area were studied on the basis of 12 years (1978–1989) of hourly average wind speed data. A wind/diesel energy system with battery storage has been modelled using the Tangiers wind regime over a one year period (1989), and synthesized consumer load data based on the characteristics of typical usage of domestic appliances, along with the estimated working patterns of a local isolated community. In this work, we use a more realistic hourly consumer load, which is the result of an experiment realized in a Maroccan village using a diesel engine to provide electricity for lighting and audio-visual. The 1989 wind data were reworked for a large series of measurements (12 years). The optimum wind turbine size and the benefits of a storage system on fuel saving are also reviewed. This work is concerned with diesel fuel consumption : an optimum design of the considered system is to be found which minimises the cost energy generation over the equipments' lifetime. Given the economic assumption made (the most important being a fuel price of 4.5 Dh/litre and an interest rate of 5% net of inflation), the wind/diesel energy system has been shown to be competitive with diesel-only generation in the wind regime of the Tangier location for the cost per unit wind turbine swept area less than 3000 Dh/m 2 (8Dh = 1$).