Integration of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) as an electrification solution can enhance the rural electrification situation in Algeria's predominantly remote Saharan regions, where diesel generators are used to provide very basic and limited electricity service. The exploitation of such a solution requires a sustainable, optimized HRES design. This paper presents a methodology both to optimize and to perform a sensitivity analysis of an autonomous hybrid PV-diesel-battery energy system. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and s-constraint method were used to simultaneously minimize total system cost, unmet load, and CO2 emissions. One optimal solution was chosen among the solutions set and analyzed. The remote Saharan village of Tiberkatine, province of Tamanrasset in southern Algeria was considered as a case study. The hybrid system supplied the energy demand of 20 households. It was found that the optimal solution can supply energy without unmet load, the minimum cost of energy COE is 0.37 $/kWh with 93% renewable fraction. A sensitivity analysis was performed on the optimal system to study the impact of three parameters (load consumption, epsilon(CO2), and epsilon(LLP) constraints) on the system behavior. Finally, a comparative analysis between PSO and HOMER was performed, it was found that the PSO based approach is more cost effective with more PV penetration than HOMER. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.