Last week on the 26th and 27th of April we gathered on the beautiful island of Inis mór /Arann to present to some follower island authorities the advances in the REACT project.
Our aim and objectives of this visit and meeting was to provide a detailed tour and information talk to the follow on islands of Gotland and lesbos on how the project concepts gets materialised and the benefits it provides to islanders.
Meetings were held as well as a detailed tour of the installations. The Aran Partners CFA and UnG presented a power point which included a slide on what were the main challenges during this pilot , what worked well and what to consider for follower on pilots.
Issues such as transport, equipment’s, constructions, commissioning, participants issues and the issue about the Wi-Fi as a big problem for small islands among other things.
If we want to extend the good experience on the implementation of renewable energies in bigger islands the lessons learnt on the pilot islands are to be fully considered.
The implementation of the platform in a mobile phone as well as the web were showed to all attendees. The mobile app presents all the information a user needs to know about the installations performance. It shows the components, its activity and the battery condition among other functionalities. The web app is been conceived for the REACT solution operators so they can monitor all the installations and see if there is any problem i any of the buildings or dwellings. It can also offer data on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly format.
We visited several of the installations (a nursery, a school, a recycling plant, community development office building, the community local public hall) the visiting group had the opportunity to see the actual installations and to see them in operation.
Going forward It is important to note for those that consider installing renewable energy equipment to get the facts and how the benefits can improve their lives, economies and green impact.
In the childcare facility an electric car battery charger has been installed, this is the first public EV charger on the island.
The visiting group could see real community befits from the project installations.
Thanks very much to our excellent hosts Comharchumann Forbartha Arann (CFAT) -special thanks to Cathy- for such a good meeting were we could see in person the benefits of the REACT objectives. And thanks very much to the follower islands representatives who attended the meeting, showed us their insights and also for the effort to travel all the way from their home land to see for themselves those installations and their benefits. We sincerely hope the visit was of a benefit to the follow on Islands.
