The municipality of Grado looks with conviction to the future of the Earth. The city recently stood out as a base for a major event dedicated to the fight against climate change and the promotion of sustainable energy sources. On March 21-22, the island of the sun hosted the European partners of the VPP4Islands project at a high-level workshop attended by experts from France, Spain, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
What are you talking about
The VPP4Islands project (Virtual Power Plant for Interoperable and Smart Islands), funded by the European Union with more than €6.5 million under the Horizon 2020 programme, has the ambitious goal of tackling climate change and promoting the adoption of sustainable energy sources. The workshop held in Grad was an unprecedented opportunity to share knowledge and innovations related to energy production and conservation, with a special emphasis on advanced algorithms and models for optimizing energy exchanges within energy communities.
The mind of the project
RafDouglas Candidi Tommasi Crudeli, project manager of the VPP4Islands project, emphasized the importance of the technical workshops organized during the project, defining them as essential “vertical” in-depth moments for the partners involved. After meetings held in France, Belgium and Spain, Grado confirmed itself as a real technical point of reference for the management of renewable energy, with particular emphasis on the concept of energy communities, of which it was one of the forerunners in Italy.
Thoughts exposed
During the workshop, the approved project of a photovoltaic system with storage funded by the Friuli Venezia-Giulia region for 995 thousand euros for the first plot to be located in Sacca Moreri and details of the initiative to create a virtual energy community were presented. This development represents a significant step forward towards a more sustainable energy future not only for Grado, but also for the European islands involved in the VPP4Islands project. Furthermore, emphasis was also placed on how the development of energy communities can bring tangible benefits to local communities: by encouraging the active participation of citizens and enabling their energy self-sufficiency, costs will be significantly reduced, thereby improving collective life.
The voice of the municipality of Grado
“This project represented and represents an important milestone for Grado and for all European islands committed to the transition to more sustainable energy sources,” said Gianni Favaretto, Technical Area Manager of the Environmental Service of the Municipality of Grado. . “At a time when global tensions are increasingly palpable, another great value to be recognized in meetings like today’s and tomorrow’s is to promote essential tools such as knowledge and sharing to confront contradictions and conflicts.”