H2020 project INSULAE: Artelys develops an energy planning tool for the decarbonisation of European islands

INSULAE is a 12 M€ H2020 project financed by the European Commission that kicked-off in April 2019 and that will last for 4 years. The 27 partners include leading research institutions, universities, utilities, municipalities, and companies working in the energy sector. The Spanish research centre CIRCE leads the consortium.

The objective of INSULAE is to foster the deployment of innovative solutions for the decarbonisation of EU islands by developing integrated investment plans, and demonstrating their effectiveness on three Lighthouse Islands located in Croatia, Denmark, and Portugal.

Within this context, Artelys develops an advanced investment planning tool (IPT) based on the Artelys Crystal technology. In particular, the planning tool will enable its users to design energy strategies, and to monitor its impacts on insular energy systems. Key performance indicators will include energy independency, energy costs, and decarbonisation level. After having been refined via the experience gained on the Lighthouse Islands, the planning tool will be demonstrated in four additional Follower Islands located in Spain, Germany, Greece and the French Caribbean by developing Action Plans.

Furthermore, the project will reach out to other islands interested in this topic and facilitate mutual dissemination activities between all the involved islands.

Three demonstration islands

The chosen islands are complementary in many aspects: location, size, connection with the mainland, economic development, renewable shares, and carbon intensity.

These interventions will prove the ability of the use cases to develop renewable-based systems 40-70% cheaper than diesel production; thus enabling an average reduction of the fossil fuel consumption by 11% after a large deployment of the use cases in the INSULAE islands.

INSULAE’s IPT, developed by Artelys, will support the decision makers on the selection and design of cost effective Action Plans for the island decarbonisation, and propose a balanced action plan between local solutions and more expensive HVDC or AC sea cables.

Four follower islands

These islands will demonstrate the IPT application to characterise the islands and will elaborate their action plan, proposing the most suitable investments for the accomplishment of their strategic objectives.

Facts:

Project budget: 12 million € of which 10 million supported by the H2020 programme

Duration: 4 years (April 2019 – March 2023)