Much like the rest of Scotland, the island of Canna is balancing its need for future development with the goal to decarbonise its energy. Canna currently has Solar PV, wind turbines generating energy on the island, with back-up diesel and a storage battery. However, a lot of this renewable energy is wasted when excess energy is produced, meaning the island is still heavily dependent on oil as a fuel source. In 2021 - 2023, Scene worked with the island of Canna to better understand their energy flows and to optimise energy use on island.
The previous system was very simple,i.e., when frequency is high (surplus of energy) the systems are turned on. They are turned off when the excess of energy is no longer present. While this is positive, it means that the system is not very smart and relies on the individual to manually control this. Scene installed monitoring equipment across eight inhabited properties to look at when the immersion heaters are being used and when the renewable energy sources are being used. Not only saves on oil consumption but also gives control over the dump loads. What Scene has done is to give more control to residents of the islands, who can now remotely set priorities as to which energy they are consuming. Scene continues to monitor the energy supply and demand over the island to build up a whole-year profile. These consumption habits are invaluable in designing future systems. Where new properties are being built, by controlling the energy consumption strategy from the outset and considering that in design, better choices can be made to optimise generation and consumption, while reducing excess carbon emissions resulting from energy.