Explore the project as a whole and interact with the numbers
Residents of Kinlochleven are subjected to high energy costs and rely heavily on CO2 intensive fuels such as coal, wood and oil. This investigation examines Kinlochleven's potential to become an all-electric village. An audit of the current energy system showed that the village currently consumes 25 GWh/year, all of which comes from the grid and fossil fuels, producing 6,300 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The proposed system aims to address this in two ways; reducing the demand and increasing the clean supply of energy. The project included modelling of demand reduction measures targeting the retrofitting of the existing housing stock to high energy efficiency standards, electrifying the space heating demand with air source heat pumps (ASHP) and electrifying the village's transport with electric vehicles (EVs). The increased generation proposed was a combination of photovoltaics (PVs) included in the retrofit process and a small-scale hydro scheme utilising the tailrace of the existing hydro.
The demands for each aspect were modelled, after retrofitting the housing stock the demand is predicted to decrease by 72% for residential heating, hot water and appliances. Modelling of transport use predicts a decrease of 78% for transport energy consumption. The proposed changes would result in a new demand of 10 GWh/year. This reduced demand could be met by a combination of small-scale renewable generation and a private purchase agreement (PPA). The small-scale generation modelled include PV installations generating 1.7 GWh/year, community owned hydro generating 2.1 GWh/year. The PPA meets the deficit by supplying 5.9 GWh/year in conjunction with battery storage.
The project indicates a 60% decrease in energy consumption in Kinlochleven is possible. With supply entirely from renewable sources, all 6,300 tonnes of CO2 from the generation process would be eliminated.
Characteristics of the current and future energy systems are illustrated below. Explore the effects of take up rates for the retrofitting of housing and electrified transport, and the implementation of renewable generation and a PPA.