Satellite view of the Isle of Wight
The island's council is working on plans that would see it draw 100% of its energy needs from sustainable sources.
Details of the plan are still under consideration, and a timetable for implementation is not available — but the outline of the scheme is for the whole island to move rapidly towards drawing 100% of its energy from sustainable sources. Ways of achieving this are being carefully evaluated by a group of expert advisers, including architects who worked on the world's first fully planned "eco city", Dongtan in China.
Sources of sustainable energy for the island are likely to include:
- tidal power,
- wind power
- a combined heat and power plant run on waste organic matter converted to biofuel.
It is a public / private joint scheme and involves a wider regeneration of the island economy, creating new homes and jobs as well as improving infrastructure.
If it sounds a little ambitious, the island council's chief executive Joe Duckworth is certainly not short of drive or confidence to promote the plan: “I really sense that this is the way forward. It will happen. The idea is to create wealth and reduce our carbon footprint. We could be a major exporter of green energy from tidal power alone. The technology is there, the finance is there and everyone is very keen.”
Why would this scheme work somewhere like the Isle of Wight but not necessarily everywhere?
- Political support on the island
- Private sector equally keen, since investment would be tied to a specific market (island boundaries)
- Advantageous access to both wind and tidal power
Overal the plans mean a major regeneration of the island's energy infrastructure, creating jobs and economic investment
Part of the energy generation needs would be met by a combined heat and power plant running on “gasified” waste — the first of its kind in the UK. It involves converting organic waste into gases at high temperature, and is considered a highly efficient and carbon-neutral way of extracting energy from waste products.
It's a relatively new technology, with very little industrial scale biomass gasification taking place anywhere in the world so far, and Isle of Wight is set to become one of the pioneers. And as if to keep such heady plans rooted in reality, one such source of biomass would be the by-products of the island's 5000-plus cattle
Isle of Wight waterfront property
The council is also ensuring that new homes being built as part of the overall regeneration will be constructed to the Level 4 standard in the Code For Sustainable Homes.
Although the plans may take many years to implement, this has got to be good news for the potential sustainable home buyer. Whilst this scheme doesn't address the whole issue (e.g. inherent energy inefficiency of exisiting properties), it does make a massive step forward in cleaning up the energy that residents will use. Not everbody with a concern for sustainability will be able to buy one of the relatively few new-build homes that are springing up in their twos, tens, perhaps fifties — whereas turning a community of 100,000+ on to fully sustainable energy sources might be just the kind of challenge the rest of the UK can start to embrace, once a pioneer makes the initial ground.