Digital Agenda Funding

Project Status: Live Project

Project Leader: Leah Ryan

EU Programme: Northern Periphery and Arctic (2021 - 2027)

Project Budget: €1,498,935

Start Date: Jun, 2023

Finish Date: May, 2026

Project Website: https://www.interreg-npa.eu/projects/copower/home/

The aim of the project is to:

The aim is to develop a community-based Virtual Power Plant (cVPP) and a viable business model to support it in 5 communities of Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Faroe Islands.

Specific objectives are to:

The overall objective is to use transnational cooperation to exploit information technologies to link multiple small energy systems and operate them in coordination like a utility-scale power station to balance electricity demand and production.

Donegal, Ireland
ERNACT Network(Lead Partner)
Overall project manager, communications and administration and reporting.

Caitriona Strain
Visit Website
Central Ostrobothnia, Finland
CENTRIA University of Applied Science(Partner)
Centria will provide expertise in biogas production ecosystems combined with other renewable energy (RE) solutions. 

Fabian Sander
Visit Website
Donegal, Ireland
Donegal County Council(Partner)
Donegal County Council will actively contribute to all project activities across all 3 WPs. 

Paul Earley
Visit Website

Faroe Islands, Faroe Islands
Nolsoy Energy Ltd(Partner)
Nolsoy will take part in the joint development of all pilot actions and implement/test a DER pilot in their own region where heating energy is produced, stored, and distributed to local households.

Bjarti Thomsen
Visit Website
Iceland, Iceland
University of Iceland(Partner)
The University of Iceland will actively contribute to all project activities across all 3 WPs. This includes the co-design and development of the cVPP in WP1.

Rúnar  Unnþórsson
Visit Website
Oulo, Finland
University of Oulu(Partner)
The University of Oulu will contribute to all 3 WPs, including co-design/development of the cVPP and verification of its estimate calculations in practice.

Markku Kananen
Visit Website

The main output is a cVPP model for deployment in a typical NPA community with 5 distributed energy resource (DER) solutions applied and an online demonstration service.

The ERNACT regions focus on adapting and transferring services, approaches or digital knowhow between regions. Please examine the following table to see a list of specific items transferred over the past few years

Using information technologies to link multiple small energy systems and operate them in coordination like a utility-scale power station to balance electricity demand and production. This will demonstrate how communities can generate their own energy needs through a system of collective power that increases participation and control in local areas. It also raises awareness of how consumers and producers can work together to generate their own local energy requirements.