Tech Talk | Overcoming European island energy challenges

A new study from the European Commission’s ‘Clean energy for EU islands’ secretariat offers recommendations to overcome the energy challenges faced by the EU islands in various parts of the world.

Islands face a range of economic and other challenges, with their differences in terms of size, topography, population level and ease of access.

In particular, the energy challenges on islands can be significant, especially if they are remote from and not connected or only weakly interconnected to a mainland supply and they require their own back up and flexibility.

Some of those challenges include power interruptions and outages due to multiple grid instabilities and system vulnerability as a result of the more extreme weather conditions they tend to face.

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Others are that with resources tending to be limited, modernising and transitioning energy systems can be slowed and sufficient controllability is lacking.

Permitting and connection policies also tend to be complex and fragmented and islands that have implemented renewable energies often experience high curtailment to ensure system reliability.

EU islands

The EU has more than 100 islands with non-interconnected electricity systems.

These are mainly part of six EU member states: Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. They extend from nearby locations such as the Mediterranean to the Caribbean – e.g. the Netherlands’ Aruba and Bonaire – and the most outermost regions including the Indian and Pacific oceans, with France’s Reunion and French Polynesia archipelago respectively.

Following an earlier study on regulatory barriers to the clean energy transition of islands, the ‘Clean energy for EU islands’ secretariat has followed up with a study addressing technology requirements, electricity system operational practices and grid connection policies and codes, drawing on research and stakeholder input and the experiences of a representative group of islands.

Broadly what has emerged is a need to improve the planning and operation of islands’ energy systems and to sensitise national grid and renewable energy regulation to the characteristics of these systems.

Islands electricity grids also need to be prepared for operation through the energy transition and beneficial increased integration of variable renewable generation needs to be ensured.

Island energy system operation and management

In terms of operation and management, some specific recommendations include promoting hybrid systems to integrate more renewable sources, procuring centralised storage systems to reduce curtailments and benefit from ancillary services and integrating long duration storage in planning to tackle seasonal requirements.

The monitoring, control and forecasting of existing distributed renewable energy generation should be improved and the smartening of the distribution grid with advanced metering should be prioritised to integrate more flexibility.

Sector coupling solutions between the island’s loads and infrastructures should also be required , e.g. electricity with water, transport, tourism, etc.

Planning and policy

Regarding planning and enabling the regulatory and policy framework, grid codes should be modernised to include the requirements of increased operational functionalities for renewable energy systems and the rules on unbundling and storage ownership should be loosened to allow small island DSOs to optimise system operation and asset management.

The management of multiple aggregated distributed generation systems through the establishment of virtual power plants can be enabled to improve system operation and tailor-made remuneration schemes for curtailment of renewable systems can be developed for the transitioning phase to full decarbonisation.

Next steps

The secretariat’s report says that while its analysis focuses on non-interconnected islands, the recommendations can also be applied to electrically interconnected or even remote areas on the mainland as well as to weakly interconnected islands.

Acknowledging that each of the island electricity systems is unique in the way it is operated and requires its own system analysis, most recommendations detailed can be taken up by all islands aiming to decarbonise and specifically use variable renewable energy to harness their locally available natural resources for energy generation.

The report adds the responsibility for implementation lies with system operators, national regulatory authorities and national and regional governments.

Regulators and system operators active on the islands can collaborate and share experiences, learn from each other and implement appropriate measures to achieve decarbonisation on non-interconnected islands.

Additionally, the EU can play a significant role by gathering best practices, providing guidelines and shaping funding programmes to require systemic changes.

Jonathan Spencer Jones

Specialist writer
Smart Energy International

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