The Pegasus project was funded by the European Union within the Interreg MED programme 2014-2020 is led by a partnership made up by Energy Agencies, local public authorities, SME, Utility, Research Centre and University from 9 Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Malta and Cyprus) with vertical and horizontal complementary competences. The partnership aims to improve, through territorial cooperation, the effectiveness of local sustainable energy microgrids, raising the awareness and the capacity of stakeholders in the identification, adoption and implementation of the microgrids as an innovative model of sustainable energy local community.
The project after two years of preparation the project was finally approved during December 2016 and started on February 2017 its financing is comprehended under the Priority Axis 2 “Fostering low-carbon strategies and energy efficiency in specific MED territories: cities, islands and remote areas”, Specific Objective 2.2 “To increase the share of renewables local energy sources in energy mix strategies and plans in specific MED territories”.
Smart technology could support full Renewable Energy Sources exploitation however there are few application of in this regards as the microgrids. Indeed actually the spread out of microgrids faces several challenges:
- absence of organizational (management) model,
- lack of reference benchmarks to assess the convenience for the territories,
- not clear leadership at local level in such rarefied territories,
- the evaluation ex-ante of financial resources needed for the up-front investment.
Microgrids can contribute to optimize the aggregated energy consumption of a pool of consumers, reducing their collective bills. PEGASUS faces these problems working on a three-fold set of activities:
- Knowledge improvement: to improve the knowledge on the existing opportunities relate to the use of microgrids through the definition of reference business models as well as market benchmarks based on real data and consumption behaviors.
- Institutional and Capacity Building: through the definition of practical instruments that can foster the introduction of microgrids as technical specifications, governance model, SEAP measures and ERDF Operational Programme measures as well as through dedicated training of the personnel of the Public Sector.
- Raising awareness: through promoting the results and transfer among the key stakeholders (market operators, regulators, end-users, regional-authorities) in order to contribute to create an enabling environment.
