AbstractThis paper considers the use of photovoltaics to power rural petroleum service stations, or as a back‐up for urban service stations where power supply from the national grid is rather erratic in a developing country like Nigeria. Issues concerning system design, choice of components and the economic considerations of such a conceptualized system are also discussed. the payback period based on simple payback analysis is about 5 years. It is envisaged that the service station will also provide facilities such as cathodic protection for storage tanks, battery charging and distilled water productio