EU island decarbonisation and its sector coupling conundrum

For Lucija Rakočević from the 'Clean energy for EU islands' secretariat, when is comes to island decarbonisation, there isn’t necessarily one core piece of technology to look to – rather, the key issue is sector coupling.

Rakočević, a Senior Energy Consultant of Energynautics GmbH, explains during an exclusive interview at Enlit Europe that, although decarbonisation is on everyone’s lips because of the energy crisis, for those living on islands, it is but one of many challenges.

“With climate change, it’s not only about energy. It’s about water, it’s about waste, it’s about transport ... what are the needs of the island?”, posited Rakočević.

“There is limited resources and we really support, and the system operators are really looking into, options for sector coupling for system integration.”

This, adds Rakočević, is what is crucial. More so, that it is top of mind from an early stage.

“That’s the first one that needs to come in at the planning stage, because if it doesn’t … it’s really hard for it to be implemented later on.

“These are typically siloes of different organisations – water and waste are typically created on the local level, or decided on the local level, whereas energy is typically top-down.”

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Another key consideration when it comes to islands and their decarbonisation she adds is that of baseload power. According to Rakočević, islands still typically depend on fossil fuels technologies for this baseload.

“We really need to decarbonise the baseload technologies. We need to see how local resources can be used so that they’re complementary to each other, such as PV and wind in certain areas. Can we use the technology to provide inertia to the system?”

What this all comes back to, she says, is that of the investment question, “how much is that going to cost? We always come back to the planning.

“Energy is top-down. A lot of planning comes from the top and it doesn’t take into account … the [specifics] of that island system. So there needs to be more analysis in connection to the knowledge institute. That’s what we see.”

Watch the rest of the interview for Rakočević’s insights into how grid stability in the face of island decarbonisation remains an issue, the critical role of locals, both energy communities and municipalities, in planning stages for renewables projects and Rakočević’s recommendations for EU energy island decarbonisation.