Expected impacts

ROBINSON will contribute to a healthy, fossil-fuels independent society with increased employment opportunities. By reducing CO2 and NOx emissions, ROBINSON will directly improve the quality of the air that Europeans breathe, having a positive impact on reducing the number of respiratory diseases and other negative impacts on human health. Secondly, ROBINSON will contribute to mitigating the EU islands’ dependency on imported fossil fuels, thus increasing the independency of islands communities and supporting decarbonisation. Moreover, this will help create new sustainable job opportunities transforming local communities from consumer into prosumers. Especially, the development of integrated systems for island or even stand-alone applications will have a significant impact on the related local communities in terms of job creation.

Finally, thanks to its multi-sectoral and multi-actor outreach, ROBINSON will contribute to the low-carbon targets as set by the EU’s Energy Union, and to the Paris Agreement.

 

Expected impacts CO2 illustration

Decarbonization

ROBINSON will help achieve a faster decarbonisation, enabled by reduction of fossil fuel consumption, increased efficiency, better RES integration, and waste valorisation.

Once fully installed, the ROBINSON system will reach up to 90% cut of all CO2 emissions  (100% for industry and 50% for transport) compared to conventional system. This steep reduction of emissions is achievable thanks to: 1) losses reduction (higher efficiency and lower emissions) at partial load operation via integrated management of various DER technologies, 2) increased clean fuel flexibility of thermal power plants CHPs, able to use different sources of CO2 neutral fuels (mixing and switching), 3) avoid the current practice of exporting excess wood biomass (currently shipped to Sweden) by using it locally to generate biogas, 4) connection of ships to the local electricity grid during the time of unloading of cargo, replacing usage of fossil fuels.

Once fully operational (expected in 2030), the ROBINSON system will replace the usage of fossil fuels for heating by 100%: reduction from ~19400 MWh/year to 0

On Eigerøy, the technologies developed in ROBINSON will enable the replacement of fossil fuels currently used for heating and process stream, as well as partly in the transport sector. Moreover, at the end of the project the LNG usage will be decreased by 18,5%.

Enhanced stability of the grid

The combination of local energy generation and longer-term storage in the form of hydrogen, bio-methane and heat developed in ROBINSON will stabilize the local grid. ROBINSON will also allow for self-sustainable operation in cases of no grid connection (smoothing of the grid congestion issues and reverse energy flows). 

The system will enhance the diversification of the energy mix by enabling to switch between different energy sources, to couple different energy vectors, and to optimise the efficiency of the operations, hence avoiding fluctuations. Thanks to these capabilities, the security of energy supply, critical on islands and remote locations, will be increased. 

The shift of the energy mix will be substantial: the importance of the transmission grid will decrease from 60% to 20%. Thanks to the efficient integration of distributed local sources, fossil fuels will be completely phased out and replaced by biofuel produced from biomass (to be used both in heath and electricity generation), and Renewable Energy Sources (mainly solar and wind). Finally, hydrogen will be used as a back-up fuel. 

Once the ROBINSON system is fully operational, at least 20% of the expected yearly electricity demand and 100% of the heat demand will be covered by local resources. ROBINSON will complement the intermittency of renewable energy sources with safe, environmentally-friendly and carbon-free fuel and storage technologies (mainly hydrogen). These compact and flexible technologies will be integrated in the energy system by the EMS. In this way, the  overall energy system will be optimised through the adoption of different and complementary energy sources and loads, able to match supply and demand.

Large scale uptake

ROBINSON aims to be replicable on energy islands that have similar needs to Eigerøy. It shows potential for further replication on other islands, and in remote areas of poor countries, especially considering cost decrease solutions/opportunities. ROBINSON will demonstrate that a smart and integrated energy system can be crucial in reducing fossil fuel consumption drastically by overcoming intermittency issues usually related to renewables. Replicability will be facilitated by the high flexibility and modularity of ROBINSON. Moreover, since the system is able to integrate different technologies, it will be easy to adapt ROBINSON to the needs of each individual location. 

In general, the ROBINSON system is expected to be cost-competitive compared to other variable RES and electrochemical storage (i.e. batteries). The lower cost will be achieved by a combination of storage and buffer capacity for the different energy vectors, but mostly by making use of hydrogen as a storage medium.

Next to lower energy costs, increased independency and security of supply, other economic benefits of  ROBINSON are:

  • Avoiding expensive extension of the existing transmission grid (for Eigerøy the costs associated with the extension are estimated between 6.1 and 12.2 M€, based on 2018 estimations);
  • Another economic benefit results from avoided CO2 taxes due to abandoning fossil fuels and replacing them by local, renewable resources;
  • Further economic benefits for the local stakeholders will result from the implementation of industrial symbiosis concepts that allows to re-use and re-sells otherwise wasted products (e.g. oxigen, a bi-product of the electrolysis in production of hydrogen, can be used for different application in other sectors, like the healthcare sector);
  • Finally, ROBINSON will open up new economic opportunities for the local communities and create local jobs in the down the whole value-chain.  
Flag of Europe This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 957752.
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