IANOS
Unlocking the great potential of EU islands to act as Lighthouses of pan-European decarbonization
| Business | Period | Project Coordinator | Funding Scheme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | October 2020 - September 2024 | EDP through CNET CENTRE FOR NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES SA | H2020 |
Challenge
Specific energy-related challenges and trends pertain to the majority of the 2,700 EU islands on the European Continent (where almost 3.5% of EU citizens live), which make for a more burdensome and expensive pathway to ensure energy security and resilience compared to the mainland:
- high dependence on fossil fuels or energy import from mainland;
- seasonality of demand (tourist arrivals in small islands have increased by >30% during the last decade);
- continuously increasing non controllable Renewable Energy Sources (RES) penetration that displaces conventional generation, dramatically reducing grid inertia (especially in smaller islands - isolated networks).
IANOS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n° 957810 to demonstrate, under real-life operational conditions, a group of both technological and non-technological solutions adapted to harsh islandic conditions, in two Lighthouse (LH) islands (Ameland in the Netherlands and Terceira Portugal), covering a multitude of energy supply, storage and end-use vectors on different climatic and socio-economic conditions, while taking the appropriate measures for their replication into three Fellow islands (Lampedusa in Italy, Bora Bora in the French Polynesia and Nissyros in Greece).
Approach
In the framework of IANOS, RINA is mainly responsible for the maximization of IANOS impact by leading the activities of dissemination, promotion and exploitation in order to ensure the visibility towards the targeted stakeholders and the public at large and to guarantee the project’s prosecution.
We are also going to promote IANOS replication thanks to dedicated actions at normative/certification level and policies at National/EU Level by identifying technical and non-technical barriers towards the full marketability of project solution and to define how IANOS can promote new type of standards, best practices and normative for the facilitation of IANOS innovation replication.
Conclusion
In conclusion, IANOS focuses in the maximization of flexibility harnessing and provision along with self-consumption capability, through the utilization of distributed RE and storage technologies. Operational linkage and coordination of the energy vectors (electricity, thermal, fuels) is performed through multi-source energy storage, demand response (DR) and Power-to-X technologies (i.e. power-to-gas, power-to-hydrogen, power-to-heat, power-to-mobility), supported by an intelligent Virtual Power Plant platform (iVPP).
At the planning level, IANOS streamlines the decision-making process towards tailor-made solutions considering islands’ specific traits, through the Island Energy Planning and Transition Suite (IEPT).
In this way, IANOS will demonstrate a rich portfolio of Use-Cases (including numerous RES-based systems) towards a full decarbonization goal, increasing the share of RES in the energy mix and exploiting the assets of each LH, including geothermal, wind, tidal and solar energy.
