**2. Background**

The island of Sark, located in the English Channel in the Bay of St Malo, is enduring an electricity distribution crisis. The issue relates to high electricity costs of almost six times higher than UK mainland energy costs. Sark electricity, the island's privately owned energy generation entity, has warned that a reduction in the electricity price could result in a permanent shutdown of energy generation.

The island's independent energy commissioner has objected to the high electricity cost of 66 p/kWh [5] and ordered the reduction of the energy price to 52 p/kWh in a Price Control Order [4]. However, this is still much higher than the UK average of 14 p/kWh.

As a response, Sark Electricity claimed that, if the price reduction is applied, they would lose £20,000 a month. The increase of energy prices has been attributed to a lower demand, forcing an increase in cost to be able to cover the capital cost of its operation. The island governmen<sup>t</sup> is trying to reach an agreemen<sup>t</sup> to buy o ff the company from the Gordon-Brown Brothers.

The price control law also aims to reduce the cost to 52 p/kWh from August 2018 to 2019 and then reduce it to a minimum of 49 p/kWh from 2019 to 2020. With the current untaxed diesel cost of 42 p/l [3], this goal is di fficult to obtain. For that reason, an alternate renewable energy generation system is evaluated to partially or completely generate the energy that the island requires.
