Tilos island is getting ready to become 100 percent green
The innovative hybrid, renewable energy-based battery station and smart microgrid project for Greek Tilos island power supply is ready to commence its trial operation. Since its inception, exactly three years ago, the project has attracted much attention worldwide. It combines energy production from renewable sources – solar and wind, and storage in accumulators with the goal to help this island in a quiet corner of the Aegean minimize expensive energy imports, avoid power cuts and make their environment greener.
Few days before the beginning of the trial operation, Balkan Green Energy News portal, which continues to follow the development of the project, talked to Dimitris Zafirakis, energy engineer and project coordinator for Tilos H2020 Project.
The island Tilos is finally going to witness a trial operation of the long-awaited, innovated project. What are the core innovative elements of this project in terms of energy generation and supply?
The trial operation of the Hybrid Power Station begins on the 6th of March, first with the commissioning and test operation of the battery storage component and next with the commissioning and test operation of the wind turbine and PV station. Gradually, the entire hybrid power station will work as an integrated system, while following that, it will also be coordinated with the demand side management (DSM) network, also close to completion.
The DSM network already engages ~100 residential consumers with the final goal being to reach 150, including also eight water pumping stations of Tilos island. This DSM pool provides deferrable loads in the order of 20% of the total island’s loads, which can be controlled in order to enable higher RES penetration through load shifting. At the same time, partial load shedding could also be an option in extreme cases of reduced power supply, owing to the loss of the Kos island interconnector and the low levels of energy stores and power production from the hybrid power station side.
All of the above are innovative elements of the smart microgrid developed in Tilos, built to operate both autonomously and in connection to the island of Kos.
Read the full interview via Balkan Green Energy News.
[Photo by The Hamster Factor | Flickr]
