Menorca is the northernmost Balearic island located in the Spanish Mediterranean Sea. Menorca serves as a best practice example for many environmental reasons, being the proactive role of the regional and local governments to support clean energy transition a cornerstone in them.
In 2020 Consell Insular de Menorca adopted the Menorca 2030 Strategy, the roadmap for decarbonizing the island’s energy system. The strategy is set as one of the four objectives to achieving 54% and 85% RES coverage of the total electricity demand by 2025 and 2030, respectively. To achieve this installation of additional plants which use solar (large scale and rooftop), wind, and wave energy are planned. To achieve a high level of RES integration the electricity grid needs to become more flexible. This is planned through the integration of energy storage, both large scale and behind-the-meter for self-consumption, increase use of electric vehicles and enabling demand side management.
Based on the Menorca 2030 Strategy, Menorca 2030 Energy Office has been formed. The office aims to help citizens and other stakeholders engage in energy transition and ease the implementation of activities foreseen under the Strategy. Furthermore, as Territorial coordinators of the Covenant of Mayors project, the Island Council has promoted the adhesion of the 8 municipalities to the same, guided the redaction of the corresponding 8 SECAPs and sponsored the introduction of a Municipal Energy Managers in each Town Hall, creating this way a task force dedicated solemnly to the energy transition of the territory. Currently, it’s in the process of integrating accountability energy system for all administrations.
In collaboration with the Secretariat, the Consell Insular de Menorca has been working on ways to implement solar plants with engagement of local community, as enabled by the Balearic Climate change and Energy Transition Law which requires 20% participation of citizens, civil society organisations and local renewable energy communities in the deployment and management of renewable energy systems. Additionally, together with the Secretariat, Consell Insular de Menorca is currently looking into ways to support behind-the-meter battery storage for residential self-consumption of decentralised solar generation. This is a part of a large scale project to increase the flexibility of the island’s electricity grid. In this process, Menorca is looking for open collaboration with other stakeholders across Europe to work together through research and implementation projects to achieve foreseen ambitious goals.
Aside from Menorca, Secretariat has been actively working to highlight best practice example islands. Some of them can be found in Technical Solutions Booklet, or Regulatory studies available online (Greece, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Estonia and Croatia).