The Isles of Scilly: beautiful islands become Smart Islands

For anyone who doesn’t know about the UK’s southernmost spot, the Isles of Scilly is an archipelago 28 miles off the south-west of Cornwall in the Atlantic. It is designated a Conservation Area, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Heritage Coast. It comprises 55 islands, of which 5 are inhabited by a little over 2200 people in total.

As is the case with many island communities, the principal industry is tourism. Indeed, it accounts for 85% of the archipelago’s income, and 63% of all employment results from it. The other main income is agriculture, in particular cut flowers. The islands are carbon-intensive, ranking 8th highest in England for fuel poverty, due to their dependence on electricity and imported fossil fuels.

Into this context comes Smart Islands, which is a major programme of linked projects that began in 2015 and which is designed to aid the community in moving to a low-carbon future. This is a list of aims from the council’s website:

• Reduce electricity bills by 40% by 2025

• Generate 40% of the Islands’ electricity by renewables by 2025

• Transition to 40% of vehicles being low carbon or electric by 2025

• Manage waste and sewage locally and sustainably

• Raise aspirations and provide opportunities

• Become an environmentally aware and responsible tourism destination

Investment comes from both the public and private sector. To get this all going, Hitachi are running Smart Energy Islands, which will provide a smart grid for the islands’ energy supply, instal solar panels, improve the efficiency of council-owned homes and reduce energy costs for business. The grid will generate energy from waste, sewerage and a mix of renewable energy sources. The other elements of the project are scheduled to happen over the next three years. The point is to manage demand in a sustainable fashion.

It is a £10.8 million project, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. It’s making use of the latest tech, as you’d expect: the various elements – solar gardens, batteries, rooftop solar panels, domestic heat pumps and electric vehicles will link through an Internet of Things (IoT), which will be developed by Hitachi.

Aerial view of the archipelago. Photo: Mike Knell/cropped from original/licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Of particular interest is the Community Venture. It’s a not-for-profit company that concerns itself with projects regarding a low carbon future. It’s focused on the Smart Islands programme and wants to ensure that the value from the projects remains on the islands and is used to develop the sustainability agenda further. It sells energy generated by the solar panels and recycles the income to reduce electricity bills for all islanders through a special Isles of Scilly energy tariff, in a partnership with not-for-profit licenced energy provider, Our Power. This provides an immediate return and is “a unique energy deal for everyone living on the islands aimed at giving everyone cheaper electricity bills”.

This isn’t just happening off the coast of Cornwall. The initiative is EU-wide, as can be seen in this statement:

“The Smart Islands Initiative is a bottom-up effort of European island authorities and communities. It builds on years of collaboration between European islands and seeks to communicate the significant potential of islands to function as laboratories for technological, social, environmental, economic and political innovation.

The Smart Islands Initiative is inspired by the Smart Cities and Communities – it seeks to improve life on islands through sustainable, integrated solutions that make the most out of islands' competitive advantages. More so, the Smart Islands Initiative underscores the role of islands in accelerating Europe's transition into a low carbon, sustainable and economy.”

Why are islands particularly vulnerable and in need of such programmes? A major issue can be insularity, unsurprisingly, which means they are likely to be energy-dependent, overly reliant on fossil fuels and to suffer from high transportation costs. There’s a reason why John Donne wrote the phrase “no man is an island” when describing the interconnectivity of human life.

What about in the future? Next in the pipeline will be the introduction of V2G (vehicle-to-grid) electric vehicles, which also function as batteries: they can be charged up when renewable power is in high supply and energy drawn from them during peak demand. They will help the community make the switch to cleaner and sustainable energy in their homes and businesses, with an attendant effect being the reduction of transport-related air pollution. Other renewable energy generation and innovative ways to manage waste and water are just around the corner.

Let’s say a bit more about the tech, in particular the IoT platform developed by Hitachi. It tracks energy supply, storage and demand, letting the community better manage how it uses power, ensuring more of the renewable energy can be used across the network. It does this by monitoring usage in homes and businesses. If more is needed, renewably produced power can be drawn from the aforementioned home batteries and electric vehicles to top up supply, rather than turning to non-renewable sources. What we have is a winning combination of accurate data from the IoT platform and flexibility from the smart grid and batteries, which of course allows the community to be more adaptable.

As well as being the 8th worse place for fuel poverty, the islands also have the second highest per capita domestic energy use in the UK. Given the sunshine levels – on average 280 hours more per year than London – solar power is of course very much on the agenda in response to this. Nearly half the homes in St Agnes are now equipped with solar power, 31% with solar PV panels on the roof and the remaining 16% with solar thermal. 

All of what has been briefly discussed above is discussed in detail in the Energy Infrastructure Plan for the Isles of Scilly. It’s worth quoting the technical data that is driving the plan:

“The total generation capacity is 3.1 megawatt (MW) and this is expected to generate around 7,500 MWh/a of electricity or 40.5% of electricity consumption.

The central case comprises:

·         PV – 1.5 megawatt peak (MWp), which includes the current installed capacity of 270 kWp. Up to 2 MWp is possible, but any more is difficult to integrate due to over-generation compared to IoS loads. There is no shortage of sites for PV and its impact will be minimal visually.

·         One of or a mixture of Wind – around 1 MW – cheapest generation option available and/or Tidal Stream – 1.2 MW – still pre-commercial and expensive

·         Anaerobic digestion (AD) for sewage/food waste/green waste – around 100-200 kilowatts (kW)

·         Gasifier for the sewage cake/waste wood and woody green waste – around 500 kW

·         New power station – relocated, greater flexibility and modular

·         Demand response (DR) and energy storage in the range 1.5 megawatt hours (MWh) to 2.5 MWh”

It’s all about getting the right balance between generation and demand.

The Smart Islands programme is being delivered through a partnership made up of the following organisations: The Duchy of Cornwall, Tresco Estate, The Council of the Isles of Scilly, Hitachi Europe Ltd. and the Islands' Partnership. More organisations are expected to join as projects are developed. For more information, visit the partnership page.