A tale of two islands – what to do with too much energy?

Excerpt from eandt.theiet.org

Remote and rugged, a refuge from modern life – the cultural myths surrounding islands and their inhabitants have a fierce hold over our imaginations. Reality is often more prosaic, but could we learn how communities on islands – awash with wind, sunshine, wave and tidal energy – are pioneering use of natural resources? As the global energy supply tightens and the world grows ever hotter, the need to muster clean energy becomes acute.

We look at creative approaches of two award-winning islands: Ærø in Denmark, and Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland.

You can literally feel the energy in the Orkney Islands – apart from the few days a year the wind doesn’t blow. From his home desk on a blustery Orkney Mainland (the principal island in the archipelago), Neil Kermode, managing director of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) can see his garden wind turbine spinning vigorously. With average winter winds of 36km/h, the device produces 16,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year – more than enough to power his own home and electric car. The rest, he sells back to the UK grid – underwater cables connect Orkney to the Scottish mainland. Regulation (by SSEN) currently prevents him installing a domestic battery for storage.

The Orkney Islands have become the poster child of progress in clean energy and work similarly to Kermode’s house but on a larger scale, selling excess back to the grid. Some 80 per cent of the islands’ total energy use is fossil-fuelled; the remaining 20 per cent is from electricity, “and we have largely succeeded in decarbonising that”, says Kermode.