The Portuguese island of Porto Santo has an ambitious project: to become the first European smart island. Among its supporters is Renault, which chose the island to test sustainable, electric and shared mobility
Porto Santo, the Portuguese island in the Madeira archipelago, has a dream — difficult but not impossible: to become the first "smart" island in Europe. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, small (half an hour is enough to cross it from end to end), appreciated above all by golfers and lovers of long, sandy beaches, Porto Santo has 5,000 inhabitants and 1,000 vehicles (with notable surges in the summer months) and the perfect dimensions to become a laboratory for testing a "smart" future, in search of solutions to improve energy efficiency, the circular economy, and electric and shared mobility.
The Smart Fossil Free Island project has an ambitious objective: to make Porto Santo the first European smart island to free itself from dependence on fossil fuels. Launched in 2018 by the regional government of Madeira (on which the island depends, including for its energy supply), it focuses on the use of smart and sustainable technologies to increase the energy independence of its inhabitants and promote the production of renewable energy. At the forefront among the partners are EMM, the Empresa de Electricidade de Madeira — the energy provider that supplies the Portuguese islands of the archipelago — and Renault, involved in the project through a trial aimed at implementing new electric and shared mobility solutions on the island, extending the scope to the use of second-life batteries and so-called smart charging, also exploiting the bidirectional charging capabilities of the electric Renault Zoe. The French manufacturer, which is currently evaluating the merger proposal with FCA, is among the leaders in electric mobility and will present 12 new electrified models by 2022, of which 8 will be fully electric. We went to the island of Porto Santo to understand how far the Smart Fossil Free Island project has come.
Testing the transition towards a virtuous model of environmental sustainability on a small island is at the heart of the Portuguese project. Energy and mobility are at the centre of the project. Porto Santo, like many smaller islands, faces an energy challenge in the form of its dependence on an external source (in this case Madeira), which entails difficulties such as the use of ships for fuel supplies and the use of diesel generators to cover the summer peaks in tourism. The aim of the trial is therefore to focus on the use of renewable sources in order to produce clean energy. A sustainable mobility plan is also needed to reduce environmental impact by offering electric car-sharing solutions powered by a smart grid model.
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As the report drawn up by the Université de la Réunion, Energy in the EU Outermost Regions — which also analyses other islands such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion and Saint-Martin — clearly explains, transport on the Portuguese island currently accounts for more than 50 per cent of primary energy demand and CO2 emissions. The use of renewable energy sources produced so far through small electricity grids is sufficient to meet demand during off-peak hours, due to a lack of storage capacity that partly offsets the available wind energy production. This is why the electric mobility project supported by Renault is particularly significant. According to the same study, the annual consumption of 1,000 electric vehicles with a range of 25,000 km/year is equivalent to the annual output of 1 MW of wind energy.
Born from a collaboration between local energy provider EEM, Renault and The Mobility House, a German company specialising in the implementation of connected electric mobility systems, the project involves supplying the island of Porto Santo with a small fleet of electric vehicles (fourteen Renault Zoes, some equipped with bidirectional charging – the so-called vehicle-to-grid, meaning the ability to modulate the charging and discharging capacity of the batteries according to users' needs and the available electricity supply – along with second-life batteries recovered from Renault vehicles and used as storage systems to stabilise the grid. The project, which envisages three phases, already has a smart platform designed to integrate renewable energy into the island's future ecosystem. At present, the inhabitants of Porto Santo are contributing to the project by using the electric cars for private journeys but also as taxis, hotel shuttle services and vehicles for the local Police, who can make use of the 40 connected charging stations – both private and public – for recharging. The aim is to increase the electric vehicle fleet on the island from 20 to 100 units by 2020 (10% of the 1,000 vehicles on the island in total).
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A fundamental issue on the global agenda for the development of electric mobility, the "second life" of batteries from first-generation electric vehicles is at the heart of the trial launched by Renault on the Portuguese island. Thanks to two storage units with a capacity of 132 kW, it is possible to store the energy produced by solar and wind power installations with the aim of regulating voltage and stabilising the grid during peak consumption periods. At present, the carbon footprint of Porto Santo's energy production is still too heavily affected by the consumption of fossil raw materials, but the expansion of renewables and the testing of more sustainable mobility models are significant steps forward. What are the next milestones? To continue the trial, reduce energy dependency, gather the needs and expectations of residents, and build new public and private partnerships with the goal of creating a model that can be replicated on other minor islands — ideal laboratories for testing the smart cities of the future.
