Saint-Nicolas island headed for electrical autonomy
EDF Store & Forecast has kitted out Saint-Nicolas island in the Glénan archipelago with its Energy Management System (EMS), enabling optimized and autonomous management of electricity generation installations and local flexible resources.
In the Glénan archipelago in the south of Brittany, EDF Store & Forecast has designed Saint-Nicolas island’s Energy Management System (EMS) on behalf of Enedis, the grid operator and local electricity distributor.
The EMS is responsible for the entire network, which involves managing and optimizing electricity generation installations and local flexible resources 24/7; including photovoltaic generation (36 kWp), wind generation (20 kW), gensets (130 kVA) and an industrial battery (30 kW—316 kWh), as well as the International Diving Center’s compressed air storage system (15 kW—50 kWh).
As part of the project, EDF Store & Forecast has also provided a microgrid control system (SCADA) that enables Enedis to supervise the EMS on a daily basis. Down the line, the production and consumption forecast integrated into the EMS will be calibrated based on historical data, which will improve the overall management by providing increasingly more resilience to weather variability.
Benefits of using an EMS for a microgrid
- Generators are only used when absolutely necessary and under consistently favorable installation conditions, thereby optimizing their output while limiting their environmental impact, their management costs and the amount of fuel that needs to be purchased ;
- It is easier to balance supply and demand, as the EMS uses a varied energy mix and diverse means of storage, thereby enhancing the autonomy of these notoriously precarious electrical systems
Saint-Nicolas is EDF Store & Forecast’s third project in the French region of Brittany, following EMS installations in the Sein and Ouessant islands in 2017. The company is also involved in the MASERA (REIDS) microgrid project in Singapore. These references consolidate EDF Store & Forecast’s expert knowledge of energy management solutions for isolated microgrids that are not connected to the mainland grid.
