On January 15, in Seville, the COSMIC project will begin, an environmental initiative of the European Union, which will have the Balearic ports as protagonists. “This project is exciting. If it is successful, it will help to anticipate energy demand in maritime terminals or nautical facilities, and these systems could be replicated in other European industries,” Jorge Martín told La Voz de Ibiza.
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Balearic Islands, chosen in a European project that seeks environmental solutions with the use of AI
He is head of the Operations and Environment area of the Balearic Islands Port Authority (APB), and the person responsible in the archipelago for the COSMIC project, a European Union (EU) initiative that seeks to find energy solutions based on Artificial Intelligence. “It is an innovation project aligned with the Green Pact, which seeks energy savings to decarbonize through the use of technology and, especially, Artificial Intelligence,” adds Martín, an engineer with 17 years of experience in the APB, the last six in areas related to the environment. COSMIC includes 21 partners with different environmental initiatives in eight countries (in addition to Spain, there are Belgium, France, Finland, Portugal, Germany, Sweden and Poland). The project has a total budget of 10 million euros, fully funded through the EU Horizon Program. APB ‘s will be one of 14 pilot cases (the only one involving port areas) that will be evaluated over the next three years. The five APB ports will participate in the initiative: Palma de Mallorca, Alcúdia, Mahón, the port of Ibiza and the port of La Savina,
-Why was APB chosen to carry out one of the pilots?
-AI requires data. APB has a smart metering network at the electric level. We have real-time consumption of all our electricity meters and this has been a handicap. Because what we are looking for is to see the future energy demand of a nautical facility, taking into account that in the medium to long term many electric boats are envisioned. These data of the meters in our five ports are those that we are going to make available to the consortium.
-The objective is to be able to prepare for the energy that is needed at any given moment.
-Exactly. And in that sense, to continue with your previous question, the APB has another advantage: we have the capacity to laminate energy demand through port tariffs. We could modify user behavior through more economical schedules, encouraging certain demand to occur in certain time slots, and modify the peaks. This would allow us to satisfy port user demand without very specific peaks.
-What other legs does the project contemplate?
-In addition to this use case of energy demand for electric vessels, the APB wants to raise in this project the possibility of planning the energy demand of maritime terminals. Having in real time information of the ships entering a port and the passengers they carry, this could help us to know the electrical demand in a terminal, for example, related to lighting and necessary air conditioning.
-How does this forecast serve to save energy?
-For example, in Palma we are currently installing a hydrogen fuel cell. And knowing the consumption of that battery according to the arrival of ships would allow us to optimize its hydrogen replenishment.
Illusion in Ibiza
COSMIC contemplates a diverse range of energy efficiency initiatives in areas beyond the port. For example, a pilot project in Portugal will explore vulnerabilities to flooding events to create inclusive coverage; another, from the Andalusian Community, will attempt to provide solutions to energy poverty in social housing. In the case of the Balearic Islands, the budget allocated for the pilot is 415,250 euros. “The planning of port cargo infrastructure presents a paradigm shift in the industry’s transition to cleaner energy sources,” justifies an official project document. Martin is excited that, from COSMIC, to be able to “demonstrate how technologies based on Big Data can provide tools, empower solutions and create systems for key applications in different industrial ecosystems, which can be replicated at the European level.” This, he points out, is especially valuable, considering the future use of renewable energies.
-How can the results of this project impact the port of Ibiza?
-In Ibiza, this project generates a lot of excitement, because the island is working on initiatives to generate renewable energy, such as wave power. So, anticipating the energy demand will be an advantage for the design of the necessary storage batteries.
