Addressing Energy's Changing Landscape
The energy sector is going through a technological and regulatory transformation as electricity becomes an increasingly dispersed and flexible form of energy. Hitachi believes that Social Innovation is key to optimising energy flows and ensuring a more reliable and sustainable world for generations to come.
On the Isles of Scilly in the far south-west of the United Kingdom, the Hitachi-led Smart Energy Islands project (part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund) is taking advantage of huge technological opportunities and changes in the electricity market, on a scale not seen since the late-19th century. Working with two of the UK's leading smart home technology companies, PassivSystems and Moixa, Hitachi is installing its IoT platform to balance electricity demand and supply on some of the UK's most protected yet carbon-intensive islands.
The £10.8 million project is demonstrating how solar power, batteries, smart heating technologies and electric vehicles can be used to help support the islands' energy system and reduce bills for the whole community. Hitachi seeks to contribute to the smart energy infrastructure of the future, based on an integration of information technologies, commercial innovation and smart energy systems to offer the prospect of lower costs from cleaner energy.
This summer, around 450kW of solar panels are being installed on the roofs of Council homes, on a fire station, the recycling facility and desalination plant, and in a solar garden by the airport, which is subject to planning consent. They will more than double the islands' renewable capacity and save nearly 900 tonnes of CO2 every year. One hundred homes (10% of all homes on the islands) are getting home energy management systems, and 10 homes are piloting a variety of additional smart energy technologies, including smart batteries and air source heat pumps. The technology integration, which will be completed by November 2018, is enabling the more efficient use of locally-produced energy on the islands.
A not-for-profit Community Interest Company, called the Isles of Scilly Community Venture will sell power generated by the solar panels and recycle the income to reduce electricity bills for all islanders through a special Isles of Scilly energy tariff that will be launched this summer.
Delivered as part of the Isles of Scilly's ambitious Smart Islands Programme, local partners - the Council of the Isles of Scilly, the Duchy of Cornwall, Tresco and the Islands Partnership - are all collaborating to help residents and businesses move to a lower-carbon economy and demonstrating that social innovation can be driven from even the smallest communities.
The Smart Islands Programme aims to cut electricity bills by 40% by 2025. It also aims to meet 40% of energy demand through renewables and see 40% of vehicles be electric or low-carbon by 2025. It is designed to transform the lives of the 2,200 islanders and pilot systems that can be replicated worldwide.
Notes
1. The Isles of Scilly have no natural gas supply and rely heavily on imported fossil fuels and electricity. Electricity consumption is some of the highest in the UK.
2. The Isles of Scilly local authority area ranks 8th in England for fuel poverty. The proportion of households in the geographical area that were fuel poor in 2016 was 15.5% against the English average of 11.1% and south-west average of 10.2%. (Measured on the low income; high costs indicator, source: BEIS, Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics Report, 2018 (2016 data) https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics).
3. The Smart Energy Islands project is the first in a series of interconnected projects delivered by the Smart Islands Partnership - the Council of the Isles of Scilly, Duchy of Cornwall, Hitachi Europe Ltd., the Islands' Partnership and Tresco Estate - which aims to achieve the goals of the Smart Islands programme.
4. The Smart Energy Islands project is receiving up to £8,637,179 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding
5. Moixa Technology (www.moixa.com) is the UK's leading home battery company.
6. PassivSystems (www.passivsystems.com) is the leading provider of domestic solar PV asset management and smart heating control services.
7. Smart Islands Partnership (www.smartislands.org) aims to enable the transition to a low-carbon, sustainable and resilient community on the Isles of Scilly.
8. Isles of Scilly Community Venture (www.ioscv.co.uk) set up to share the benefits of a range of projects being delivered by the Smart Islands programme.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
Addressing Energy's Changing Landscape
