Page 36 - European Energy Innovation magazine - spring 2023 edition

Spring 2023 European Energy Innovation
36 ENERGY ISLANDS

Energy islands for sustainable

and resilient source of energy

By Dr Trayana TANKOVA, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG), Delft University of
Technology, Netherlands

limate change and have been recently developed to Energy Islands are artificial offshore
environmental degradation store the produced sustainable platforms aiming to generate large
are an existential threat to energy locally and then, transfer it amounts of renewable energy,
CEurope and the world. The whilst smart systems to improve typically through offshore wind farms,
European Commission's, European network efficiency have been and use it to power surrounding
Green Deal, which was launched in investigated and continuously regions. These projects have gained
2019, aims to make Europe climate- updated. traction in Europe as a means of
neutral by 2050. As part of this reducing carbon emissions and
plan, the Commission has identified Nowadays, there are more than meeting climate targets. Energy
offshore wind energy as a key priority 350,000 wind turbines spinning Islands are foreseen to become
for reducing carbon emissions and around the globe with about 10% during the next decade the top
achieving this goal. of them combined to alternative source of Sustainable Energy
sustainable energy systems generating capacity in Europe, in the
Besides the strategic decisions (photovoltaics, wave and tidal energy USA and Canada, and the 2nd largest
of the EU and UN to proceed for systems etc.). Due to continuous in China.
a Sustainable Future in the built technological advances, the concept
environment, sustainable energy of floating offshore Energy Islands Currently, there are several energy
technology has seen in the last (i.e. offshore wind power combined island projects in development
decades a very fast- growing much to other renewable energy sources across Europe, including the North
beyond the early-stage concepts of and energy storage) seems to have Sea Wind Power Hub, which aims to
Ocean Thermal Energy. recently become far more cost- connect large-scale offshore wind
effective and much more widespread farms in the North Sea to surrounding
In addition, innovative technologies than expected. countries through a shared grid, and
the proposed Danish Energy Island
in the North Sea, which would serve
as a hub for offshore wind power
Figure 1: On the concept of MODENERLANDS (MODular ENERgy isLANDS) production and transmission.

However, less than 10% of the world’s
electricity was harvested by wind
energy infrastructure last year that
obviously is not sufficient to trigger
a shift of the global economy away
from the climate-warming fossil fuels
that still supply most of the world’s
energy.

Based on this observation, and taking
into account the current initiatives,
a multidisciplinary collaborative
research network was launched in
2021 to explore options and potential
solutions, the COST Action: Modular
Energy Islands for Sustainability and
Resilience (MODENERLANDS). The
network has about 170 members
spread in 42 countries.

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