Islands face unique challenges in terms of ensuring a secure and cost-effective energy supply. Many islands have been early adopters of renewables and have seen some of the world’s first deployments of energy storage projects. These projects not only showcase the diversity of storage technologies and applications, but also highlight some of the most pressing challenges when it comes to the energy transition and deep decarbonisation.
On 21 November, over 80 participants met during the EASE Energy Storage on Islands Workshop, supported by Greening the Islands, to learn about the latest advances in energy storage technologies, assess the energy storage applications and business cases on islands, and propose policy recommendations to ensure a faster roll-out of innovative solutions to support the island decarbonisation agenda.
“The EASE workshop was dense of concrete best practices on islands and a unique opportunity to debate with global leaders on the role of storage in the island energy transition. In most cases, the key barrier to deployment of energy storage projects on islands is not technology performance, but rather related to lack of enabling policies and long-term investment certainty. The time was perfect since the 2017 Political Declaration on Clean Energy for EU Islands is expected to be updated under the Croatian Presidency of the EU in 2020.” Said Gianni Chianetta, Director of Greening the Islands.
Each island has unique characteristics which makes it impossible to develop ‘one size fits all’ solutions from a technical or strategic point of view. For each island, a holistic approach must be developed to ensure security of supply. This strategy, built upon consistent planning and reliable implementation, must take into account current and planned capacity of generation (both thermal generation and renewables), storage, demand-side response, and interconnections.
