EDP coordinates European decarbonization project in Terceira Island, Azores
IANOS is a 48-month-long project comprising 34 partners from eight European countries and involves a co-payment of €7 million from the European Commission. The goal is to test the creation of an energy community to maximize the use of clean energy and improve energy efficiency.
EDP will coordinate, through EDP NEW, a project with several European partners and European funding with the aim of creating an ecosystem to demonstrate the energy transition process in insular contexts; in this particular case, Terceira Island (Portugal) and Ameland Island (Netherlands) will be the settings for the implementation of emerging solutions and disruptive technologies for energy production and storage.
IANOS (IntegrAted SolutioNs for the DecarbOnization and Smartification of Islands) is a project that aims to demonstrate, through direct interventions on the ground, the potential for increasing the use of renewable sources in insular spaces, overcoming the challenges of grid management. This project involves 34 European partners and has secured an EU investment of €7 million from the Horizon 2020 Program, which stimulates research and innovation across Europe.
Over the project's four-year span several innovative solutions will be implemented and developed on Terceira island in order to create an energy community. Several investments will therefore be made in this region with a view to maximizing clean energy supply and increasing energy efficiency. This system will be monitored and managed with a smart Virtual Power Plant, a concept that has been created to aggregate and optimize the developed solutions.
There will also be a significant investment in Electric Mobility, based on 'Vehicle-to-Grid' (V2G) solutions - a technology already being tested on São Miguel Island (Azores), which, in addition to normal charging, allows for the active use of electric vehicle batteries by injecting energy into the grid according to the needs of the system, thereby ensuring greater supply quality and security.
Community training and capacity building is also a key part of the IANOS project, in order to increase citizens' awareness of the economic and environmental benefits resulting from the decarbonization of their regions and islands.
At a national level, IANOS will create synergies between EDP, as project coordinator, the Government of Azores, EDA - Eletricidade dos Açores, Uninova - Institute for the Development of New Technologies, EFACEC - Power Solutions, VPS - Virtual Power Solutions, and BeON Energy - organizations that will now work together with multiple institutional partners, research centers and associations in Finland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Greece.
EDP NEW - the EDP Group R&D center, which will coordinate project IANOS - has been involved in several projects aimed at demonstrating innovative energy technologies with an impact on local communities. The list includes project POCITYF, which was launched in October 2019 and is also headed by EDP NEW. The consortium will implement a suite of innovative and multidisciplinary solutions to create an ecosystem with a positive energy balance - i.e., one in which the generation of renewable energy will exceed local consumption. The purpose of project POCITYF is thus to transform Évora's urban fabric and to address the challenges posed by culturally and historically protected areas by creating a more sustainable, competitive, healthy and accessible place for its citizens. Another relevant project is SENSIBLE (completed in 2018) which included tests on storage solutions and photovoltaic panels at residential level in Valverde, Évora.