What are the Advantages for Electric Vehicles on Islands?

Electric vehicles (EVs) offer significant benefits for island communities, enhancing sustainability and efficiency.

Key Points

• Environmental Protection: EVs reduce air and noise pollution, preserving the natural beauty and biodiversity of islands.
• Cost Savings: Lower fuel and maintenance costs make EVs economically advantageous for island residents.
• Energy Independence: Utilising local renewable energy sources for EV charging promotes self-sufficiency and reduces reliance on imported fuels.

Protecting Remote Islands

Smaller island communities could be some of the fastest potential adopters of EV’s due to their unique positioning and challenges. Within the UK there are a number of smaller offshore islands that could stand to benefit greatly, within this article we are going to examine what the advantages might be and how communities in the UK and the wider world have benefitted.

How are electric vehicles helping to protect remote islands?

In the news recently, one of the remotest settlements in the world, Saint Helena⁽¹⁾ received its first electric charger. The island itself boasts a population of around 5,000 people, and it is 1,200 miles from the nearest landmass of Africa. The island is 47 square miles in area, which is slightly smaller than the city area of Edinburgh. The landscape is dominated by sheer cliffs and verdant mountains, with it being a hotspot for rare seabirds due to its isolation. St Helena represents an extreme case study for why small islands are hotbeds for the transition to EVs.

Weighing Up the Costs and Benefits of EVs in Remote Locations

Are EVs cheaper for island residents?

As anyone who has ever lived on an isolated island will tell you, necessities are expensive. Running an ICE vehicle in such places can be considerably more expensive due to the necessity of having to import fuel by sea. Islands are far more sensitive to price fluctuations in international fuel markets. As can be seen by residents of the Orkneys’ paying 29% more for energy⁽²⁾ than people living on the mainland, meanwhile a similar such situation is occurring on The Shetland Isles⁽³⁾ (despite it being the centre for the UK’s fossil fuel extraction).

For island residents, EVs represent a much cheaper alternative to the generally higher fuel prices, since the chargers would be operating off the grid rather than relying on imports. There have been studies demonstrating how the presence of EV chargers has a negligible weight on the grids of both Tenerife⁽⁴⁾ and Malta⁽⁵⁾, showing how with a few smart adaptations there will be minimal impact. Off-grid EV charging solutions would help to reduce the dependence of residents on fuel being imported and lower the cost of living.

What are the Challenges of Electric Vehicles for Off-shore Inhabitants?

One of the biggest criticisms of EVs, battery range, is not an issue for many islands. Most offshore islands take no longer than an hour to drive from end to end, so worrying about battery life is far less of an issue if the charging infrastructure is there.

At present the main blocker in cost effectiveness is the considerably higher price point of most EVs in comparison to their ICE counterparts. The EV market is lowering their prices as the technology becomes more mature, therefore this issue should be less of a problem in the coming years.

There is the issue of spare parts, since importing anything to an island is more expensive and with fewer spare parts the price would be increased, again this is an issue of market maturity and spare ICE vehicle parts still must be imported. In fact, ICE vehicles require more spares due to having more moving parts, so the cost is less of an issue.

Mer EV Chargers Fuelling Britain’s Islands

At Mer we have experienced great successes in bringing EV chargers to various offshore islands in the UK. We were the first to install an EV charger on the Isle of Gigha, becoming the biggest charge point operator on the Isle of Wight. In fact, our efforts on the island have proven so successful that since 2024 our drivers have charged enough to drive around the island 11,000 times.