The EcoGrid EU project was one of “100 powerful sustainable solutions” presented for high-level decision-makers at the RIO+20, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, at a special event on June 20th.
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The Sustainia Executive Award Committee is in charge of nominating the 100 sustainable projects. In the Committee are Arnold Schwarzenegger (Chair of the Committee), Connie Hedegaard (European Commissioner for Climate Action), Gro Harlem Brundtland (the woman behind the Brundtland Report and the first Rio meeting in 1992) and Dr. Pachauri (Nobel Laureate, Chair of the IPCC).
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
– Science has long provided a body of knowledge that covers the huge and vast potential of sustainable solutions. With Sustainia, we now have a platform that communicates this potential in a clear and comprehensive manner to a broad audience of politicians and corporations as well as civil society. Sustainia makes science easier to understand for a larger group of people, which is just what we need to meet the challenges ahead.
Kim Behnke, Energinet.dk, Denmark, partner and initiator of EcoGrid EU:
– We are grateful to achieve this prestigious position among some of the world's most promising sustainable energy, transport, building and cities projects. Our hope is that the lessons learned from the development of the EcoGrid EU Smart Grid demonstration on the Danish island Bornholm will contribute to global solutions, which can efficiently handle very high amounts of intermittent renewable energy.
Ove Grande, Sintef, Norway, coordinator of EcoGrid EU:
– Development of the EcoGrid EU market concept builds on many years of experience with well functioning electricity markets and results from other Smart Grid pilots and demonstration projects.
– What is quite unique for this project is the opportunity for full scale testing of new market concepts, i.e. in a “real” power system connected to the Nordic electricity grid. Bornholm has a large share of renewable generation which is not flexible and therefore the island faces big power balancing challenges already.
EcoGrid EU will terminate in the spring of 2015
The key idea of the EcoGrid EU is the introduction of market-based mechanisms to release balancing capacity, particularly from flexible consumption. The project is finalizing its development phase and is preparing the demonstration, which will take place over the next 2-3 years, involving about 2,000 residential and commercial costumers on Bornholm (of a total of 28,000 customers). The participants will be testing flexible demand in response to real-time price signals.
Download the Sustania 100 report here (pdf, 24,2 MB)
Visit the Sustania website here.