News

the Glénan, an open-air microgrid laboratory


Published 02 Septembre 2019



In 2021, the island of Saint-Nicolas des Glénan will be the first French island to be 100% supplied by renewable energies.

The Glénan archipelago, located off the coast of Bénodet, is sparsely populated in the winter season and welcomes up to 3,000 tourists a day in summer. The issue of autonomy in terms of drinking water and energy has always been a major issue for islands not connected to the continental network. Supplied since 1973 by two oil generators, the archipelago began to develop renewable energies in 1992 with its first wind turbine and is now aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2021.

 
The Fouesnant territory project, led by Mayor Roger Le Goff, in partnership with Enedis, aims for a rapid and complete energy transition. In 2017, 50% of the electricity consumed in Saint-Nicolas was produced by wind turbines and solar panels. By the end of 2019, renewable energies will account for 90% of the supply.

Last year, 100,000 euros were invested to equip the roofs of municipal buildings with solar panels and the wind turbine was unbridled to increase its production. Enedis has completed the system with a storage system composed of 120 batteries controlled 24/7 independently, in order to maintain a constant balance between production and consumption. The International Diving Centre is developing a flexible air storage control system that will be synchronized with renewable energy production. A project carried out in collaboration with EDF Store & Forecast and the Breton companies Enag (equipment) and Entech Smart Energies (storage).

Enedis is injecting 250,000 euros into the overall project of the territory, an open-air laboratory to develop micro-network or microgrids technologies.

On June 14, an IT interface (energy management system) was inaugurated to control all production, storage and flexible use equipment (e. g. water pumping) in real time and remotely, in order to move towards autonomy. The installation of Linky meters will then make it possible to optimize data analysis and give the municipality new levers to manage energy demand management actions; the storage will finally be resized to reach the objective of 100% renewable energy by 2021.

Fouesnant considers the Glénan project to be global and is also renovating the Fort Cigogne site to make it autonomous in terms of energy and drinking water (budget: €3.6 million).

Finally, the Glénan will serve as Enedis’ laboratory for microgrid and autonomy projects based on renewable energies, but also to test a concentration of “smart grids” solutions for the development of local power systems, which can be implemented both in other island territories and on the continent.

 

Sources :

La Tribune, PASCALE PAOLI-LEBAILLY, 23/08/2019

Site d’Enedis, article du 13 juin 2019