GIFT · Geographical Islands FlexibiliTy

GIFT is an innovative project that aims to decarbonise the energy mix of European islands. European islands have to abide by the law of their countries that push toward a greener energy mix to comply with the European and international agreements. GIFT is willing to develop innovative systems to allow islands to integrate vast amount of renewables. In order to reach that goal, the coordinator INEA has built a well-balanced consortium gathering a total of 17 partners of 7 countries, including 1 industrial partner, 9 SMEs, two municipalities, 3 research centres and 2 universities. Through the development of multiple innovative solutions, such as a virtual power system, energy management systems for harbours, factories, homes, better prediction of supply and demand and visualisation of those date through a GIS platform, and innovative storage systems allowing synergy between electrical, heating and transportation networks, GIFT will increase the penetration rate of renewable energy sources into the islands’ grid, reducing their needs for diesel generation and thus decreasing the greenhouse gases emissions directly related to it. During 4 years, the partners will develop and demonstrate the solutions in two lighthouse islands, in Hinnøya, Norway’s largest island and the small island of Procida in Italy and study the replicability of the solution in a Greek and Italian islands at the minimum, respectively Evia and Favignana. The complementarity of these islands in terms of climate, energy mix, population and activities is meant to have solutions adaptable to different situations. To even increase this, the GIFT project has started to build a replication board with associations that already gather 1640 European islands that will be able to study replication for their territories. The consortium aims to provide sustainable solutions with a strong market uptake and plans to widely disseminate their solutions and replicate it on all relevant islands in the EU and beyond.