Why islands ?

High energy prices, dependency on fossil fuels and/on mainland grid, seasonal peaks related to tourism fluxes: those are just few of the energy challenges the European islands have to face every day. However, despite all those difficulties, the European islands have a huge potential to play an essential role in Europe’s energy transition: from optimization of the use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and efficient use of local resources (and local waste), to innovative energy management to different energy vectors, islands have the potential to become forerunners in the decarbonisation of the energy systems.

The EU is aware of this potential, which is why it actively supports the islands transformation through the Clean Energy for Islands Initiative: if the right environment is put in place, islands can be not only the inspiration for other regions, whether these are geographical islands or virtual onshore ones, but can also improve the local economy, attract new investments and create job opportunities.

However, implementing the energy transition on islands is not an easy task: the uniqueness of each island is its strength, but also its curse: there is no silver bullet solution that works on each islands. Every island needs tailored-made and adapted solutions that could provide them clean, cost-efficient and reliable solutions tailored to fit their geographical situation, the fluctuating population and the local economy.

ROBINSON’s aims to help islands by being highly flexible and adaptable: its modularity will allow for replicability on different (European) islands. Moreover, by combining the intermittent RES with suitable storage, together with other available dispatchable sources such as biomass, along with a variety of operational strategies such as demand side management, ROBINSON will unlock an immense business opportunity for the European Islands.