Unleashing Island Mode: Utilising Smart Energy Systems approach to ease regulatory constraints on renewable development.

Recent reports from IPCC Special Report and the 4th National Assessment state unequivocally that current practices lead to massive disruption from climate change effects. Perversely, all the solutions required to achieve a sustainable <1.5 deg.C are widely known, yet roadblocks exist that prevent their widespread implementation. A large and complex part of this problem is the regulatory environment. Often legacy regulations from an era before the magnitude of the climate crisis fully understood prevent projects from proceeding. With renewable energy, dealing with the intermittency problem is key to removing these roadblocks. Designing systems that are not connected to the grid are an effective way to sidestep these roadblocks however careful design needs to be employed such that critical excess energy and reliability of supply issues are effectively dealt with internally to the project. This paper tracks the design and implementation of a large scale solar installation installed in Ghana, where negotiating a power purchase contract with the monopoly electricity company has prevented all except their own solar installations. It is a EUDP funded project, with Danish companies leading the move to lower the embedded CO2 content of aquaculture protein, increase the reliability of operations and allows MW scale solar to be installed in a comparatively low regulatory environment.