FEDARENE Islands College

Since 2018 a new islands college has been formed in FEDARENE, the European Federation of Agencies and Regions for Energy and the Environment, involving 12 island energy agencies and similar organizations. Additionally, 4 mainland energy agencies have been working on islands for some time now.

In total, FEDARENE is present in the majority of Member States with islands and provides technical assistance and support to a very large number of islands, including the 1.640 small islands covered by ESIN.

The establishment of this college responds to our need to channel our collective expertise towards European institutions and Member States, in order to ensure that technical and financial assistance designed for the energy transition of islands responds to well-identified challenges, and ultimately delivers tangible improvements in islands’ policy and regulation, both at EU and Member States level.

In our view, the energy transition on islands can and must be seen through the lenses of an integrated approach. An approach that maximizes synergies between energy, water, waste, transport, is underpinned by ICT, facilitates access to innovative territorial investment tools and supports enhanced multi-level and multi-lateral governance.

Being the actors who support local and regional authorities and citizens to deliver the energy transition locally, our added value can be summarized as follows:

• Maturing and realizing a significant number of sustainable energy projects on islands;
• Building extensive knowledge of the specific challenges associated with islands’ energy transition, which in many cases differ from one Member State to the other and require targeted know-how;
• Delivering solutions that are tailored to local island ecosystems and ensuring a socially-inclusive transition process;
• Building local capacity in order to ensure the sustainability of the developed visions and plans; and
• Acquiring hands-on experience with introducing cutting-edge technologies and business models that fit well with islands’ needs.