Integrated resources planning and the “island incubator” principle

Scottish Hydro-Electric (HE) is a vertically-integrated electricity utility and holds the Public Electricity Supply licence for the north of Scotland. In the context of this utility, integrated resources planning (IRP) is taken as optimising the generation and supply of electricity to customers and influencing their demand for energy-trying to match the supply and demand in the optimum way, striving for high levels of customer service, promoting energy efficiency and maintaining shareholder values. The author describes how HE is adopting a pragmatic approach to IRP by developing a series of pilot projects, which, taken together, will comprise an integrated resources plan. HE is developing integrated resources planning in the Shetland Islands in order to improve the financial performance of its generation and distribution operations. The “island incubator” concept came from Madeira and seeks to implement innovations at small island scale, where these can have significant local impact, before subsequent larger-scale replication