Energy flows on Saint Helena Island during transition to 100% renewable grid

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EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC
EPSRC

No funds listed.

Jan. 6, 2020

April 9, 2024

The Island of Saint Helena is a British territory island situated in the middle of the Atlantic. Home to 4,000 inhabitants, the main industries are tourism, fishing and some small agriculture. It is currently served by diesel generators at high cost to the locals; by UK standards there is a high level of energy poverty. The energy supplier, Connect, plan to transition the Islands energy supply to 100% renewables. As the Island is small scale, detailed data of the process of transition and how their grid is reacting will become available during the transition, from the utilities company. This PhD project aims to build a digital model of the energy flow on the island that links directly with live updates to specific nodes on their grid. This 'digital twin' model will be used to simulate options for storage, grid growth, supply and demand management. These will be explored in relation to the grid's stability, security and social measures such as energy access and energy poverty. While the PhD project is very much a case study of saint Helena island, there is a lack of research in general on small scale isolated renewable energy grids. As the price of renewable energy technologies is significantly lower than conventional stations many currently unelectrified areas in the world are expected to develop this way. Therefore, the findings of these explorations become increasingly relevant to newer small-scale energy grids across the world.
The aims and objectives
To investigate how an islands energy flow can be modelled using a digital twin so that the model adapts in real time to changes in the supply and demand on the grid.
To investigate how this type of model can benefit exploration of energy storage, access and generation configuration. This would be relevant to any grid transitioning to a more renewable supply, such as the UK.
To investigate how this type of model can relate supply, storage and demand to less quantifiable measures of energy access and potential changes in energy poverty.

The last few years digital twin technology has generated great excitement amongst academics and in industry. Well-developed case studies and examples exist for the use of Digital Twin technologies in product design and manufacturing processes. Fewer exist in the realm of energy or electricity systems modelling. Often, although the potential for the technology on a large, national scale is widely recognised, only smaller scale examples are presented, such as a smart model of an efficient building. As the energy utilities company of Saint Helena implement the transition to 100% renewables, there will be huge amount of data on how their grid works and reacts to higher percentages of renewable supply. Collaboration with them poses an interesting premise for creating the 'twin' model; it can be developed as their renewables strategy develops and alongside the real time infrastructure changes on the island. The ability to model the main energy flows as a whole is possible because of the small scale of the island; this level of detail for a network the size of the UK would be a major tasks, especially when the uses of such a model still pose such vast potential. A full model of energy flow is necessary to better explore complex indexes such as security, stability, resilience and energy poverty.
This project falls within the EPSRC Living with environmental change, Energy and Engineering research areas