A smart IT platform for accelerating the decarbonization of islands’ energy systems.
Energy+AI
Project ISLANDER: Accelerating the decarbonisation of islands’ energy systems.
Borkum is an island of about 30 km2 and 5.500 residents, located 20 miles from the north-western coast of Germany. Following concerns of the population regarding air quality due to a new coal fired power plant, Borkum started on path towards renewable energy many years ago. Following several initiatives in that direction including a citizen dialogue, the island decided to become emission-free and fully decarbonized by 2030.
Within this framework, the ISLANDER project showcases the process of making Borkum a fully autonomous and decarbonized island energy system. Specifically, the project focus es on delivering:
a) Distributed RESS systems (Renewable Energy + Small-scale Storage).
b) Complementary short-to-seasonal, large-scale electricity storage.
c) Seawater district heating coupled with heat storage and sized for 100 residential units, to make use of the heat of the North Sea water as a source of heating and cooling.
d) Deployment of an EV charging network.
e) A smart IT platform conceived to holistically perform the optimal aggregation of all these components while also implementing Demand Response (DR).
f) An optimisation tool to optimally design zero-carbon island energy systems.
To achieve such 2030 objectives of financing and maintaining the further roll-out of renewables and storage technologies across the island, the ISLANDER partners facilitates the kick-start of a Renewable Energy Community in Borkum right during the project following a concrete roadmap.
Our main tasks
- Overall systems view
- Holistic model of the energy grid
- Optimal design of the energy grid DER and HES components
- Overall design of the IT infrastructure, and general requirements of IT systems
- Open-source tool for the optimal design of island’s energy systems
- Review of the regulatory framework
- Deployment of hydrogen-based storage
- Deployment of RESS solutions
- Seawater district heating network + heat storage
- Contribution to the development of the smart IT platform for high flexibility services
- Development of smart IT platform services
Partners
BCM ENERGY | CEGASA | DAFNI | EMEC - THE EUROPEAN MARINE ENERGY CENTRE LIMITED | IDENER.AI | KU LEUVEN | NORDSEEHEILBAD BORKUM | REAK | STEINBEIS INNOVATION | ZIGOR
Start date – finish date
10 / 2020 - 09 / 2025
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 957669
