World’s first 'real' island smart grid

26 November 2012


Dong Energy and its Faroese partner SEV have launched what they believe is a unique smart grid system at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.

The Faroe Islands is the first place in the world where a virtual power plant is used to deliver fast frequency demand response, which can restore balance in an island power system by decoupling large industrial units, automatically, and in less than a second, from the main power system and thereby avoids systemic blackouts.

This is a ground breaking innovation within the development of smart grids, says Dong, and may prove to be key in islands’ as well as nations’ moves towards more renewable energy, whilst maintaining high levels of supply security.

Designed to protect against sudden power failures, or decreases in power production, the virtual power plant system 'Power Hub' developed by Dong Energy, will provide the Faroe Islands with a powerenergy supply that will allow them to integrate the five-fold increase in wind generation planned over the next two years.

Developed in collaboration with Energinet.dk, Frauenhofer IWES, and Red Eléctrica de España, Power Hub has been used as demonstration platform within the scope of the EU's FP7 TWENTIES Project. This is the EU’s largest R&D energy project to date with a total budget of €56.8 million, and a contribution by the European Commission of close to €32 million. TWENTIES aims to give Europe the capacity to increase renewable wind energy integration in the system without compromising its reliability or performance.

Launching the smart grid innovation Evert den Boer, Senior Vice President of International Sales at Dong Energy said: “Smart grid solutions are the future and will play an important role in Europe’s green transition. This bears witness to the solution’s replication potential and we are already exploring how it can be commercialised.”

The Faroe Islands have some of the world’s best wind resources, due to their position in the Atlantic Ocean. But the Islands’ power system is small and vulnerable with a high number of blackouts compared to continental Europe. The islands only have a few power plants, no interconnectors to other countries, and are challenged by harsh weather conditions with frequent storms. Despite the basic fact that this is one of the most difficult places in the world to integrate large amounts of variable and abundant renewable energy it has chosen to pursue the renewables path.




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