With support from the European Regional Development Fund, Smart Energy Islands uses technology, including Hitachi’s Internet of Things platform and AI, to reduce the carbon footprint of the Isles of Scilly whilst optimising locally produced, renewable energy.
In 2015, a partnership was established to:
• produce 40% renewable energy
• reduce electricity bills by 40%
• introduce 40% low carbon vehicles
all by 2025
It brought Hitachi together with the Council of the Isles of Scilly, the Duchy of Cornwall, Tresco and the Islands' Partnership – collaborating to help residents and businesses move to a lower carbon economy.
Technology partners in Smart Energy Islands were the UK’s leading smart battery company, facilitating smart energy storage and sharing, Moixa and intelligent home energy management systems provider, PassivSystems.
Smart Islands delivered an Internet of Things platform for the Isles of Scilly that managed solar PV generation, electric vehicles, home batteries, smart heating technologies and hot water cylinders to optimise local energy use.
The IoT platform prioritised households’ heating and hot water comfort choices, only spare capacity was used to manage flexibility within the energy network.
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An innovative partnership of technology companies, NGOs, the public sector and funding stakeholders collaborated in the project on the Isles of Scilly.
A community interest company was established to share the project's benefits through a local, community energy tariff to support lower energy bills.
The project has transferred ownership of the low carbon technologies that it used in the project to support the Isles of Scilly's sustainability goals.
The Council of the Isles of Scilly updated 82 of its social homes with a combination of energy efficiency, generation and storage systems including solar PV panels, home energy management systems, water and space heating controls, and home batteries. Five other Council buildings were fitted with rooftop solar panels and a solar garden was constructed at St. Mary's Airport.
We were able to increase the use of the newly installed renewable energy in the islands' network using the Internet of Things platform.
In total, 396 kW of solar panels were installed and an additional total of 460kW of clean energy is now available.
The management summary and final report can be downloaded from the links below. The technical appendices provide further details on the IoT platform and aggregator system performance.
With thanks to the residents of the Isles of Scilly and the following organisations for making this project possible: Council of the Isles of Scilly, Duchy of Cornwall, Islands' Partnership, Tresco Estate, PassivSystems, Moixa, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, the European Union, Hitachi Limited, Western Power Distribution and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise.
