ESIN’s CARING Project is aimed at Helping Small Islands across Europe Advance their Energy Potential

ESIN is a not-for-profit organisation registered in Sweden, serving as the voice of islanders and small islands with the objective to help small island communities remain alive. To this end, ESIN acts at two levels: at local level, ESIN aims to strengthen islands’ identity and facilitate the circulation of information between its members to support them though knowledge sharing; at the EU level, it aims to increase awareness and understanding of small islands issues.

In support of this objective, ESIN has secured an EU grant through the Horizon 2020 NESOI project (nesoi.eu), to help mobilise the island communities on six small islands within the ESIN membership to advance their clean energy transition. One of 29 projects selected in NESOI’s first call, Project “CARING” (Clean energy initiatives targeted to small islands) is a collective initiative to enable 6 small islands to work in parallel but also together on innovative solutions for their local contexts: Île aux Moines (France), Inishbofin (Ireland), Nagu (Finland), Fur and Venø (Denmark), and Ulva (United Kingdom).

The project supports these islands in developing their Clean Energy Transition Agenda (CETA), a strategic roadmap for the transition process towards clean energy that was initiated by the Clean Energy for EU Islands Secretariat (euislands.eu). (A template is available in several languages at euislands.eu/energy-transitionagenda.) The resulting CETAs will cover a variety of options as each island has chosen to focus on a different technology, appropriate for their own circumstances. Fur and Venø will investigate the possibilities for wind turbines, Nagu for utilising waste, and Ulva for heating and mobility. The Inish Boffin in the north of Ireland will be carrying out studies of specific projects such as marine energy, while Ile aux Moines in the bay of Vannes in Brittany will explore opportunities to extend electric mobility to the whole island. As a part of Iles du Ponant’s decarbonisation efforts, Ile aux Moines has already put in place an initiative called the “Carricolo Îlois”, which is an electric transportation service offered free of charge to seniors aged 75 and over by the island municipality.

To procure external advisors on site for these studies, a financial Support of €60,000 was provided as direct funding to ESIN by the NESOI Facility. Under the supervision of the project Coordinator, Alexis Chaptzimpiros who also works for the Samsø Energy Academy, these external advisors will be working in close cooperation with the NESOI consortium who will also provide technical support. The project will end in July 2022, and the results will be shared amongst the whole ESIN network for maximum benefits.

This best practice is issued from our publication Sustainable Regions in Action 2022. Read it now to discover many more best practices from FEDARENE members as well as an overview of our activities.