Integrated energy and transport planning: Targeting islands' sustainable development

The present Master Thesis focuses on islands' sustainable development and contains the output of a research activity addressing several sustainability issues in an integrated manner. It creates a nexus analysis framework, where energy and transport systems are analysed in parallel while interactions with the environment and water infrastructure are also examined. The Thesis builds on three main pillars i.e. the analyses of energy systems, new transport schemes for the islands and a qualitative-quantitative analysis of different strategies.

An energy model was specifically developed for islands to assess challenges and opportunities of transforming electricity systems and the potential role of modern renewable energy sources (RES). The model was applied in selected test-cases and processed up-to-date information. A second part of the nexus analysis investigated the potential role of emerging and revolutionary transport concepts in the island setting. Potential synergies were also identified to enable a harmonic operation of transport and energy systems. As a third pillar, the research analysed the different strategies. It processed the priorities defined by a selected group of 44 specialists (scientists, decision makers, industry and project developers) with experience on islands' sustainable development. Selected experts filled a structured questionnaire, specifically designed for the needs of islands, and the collected responses were processed using a Q-technique. The results translated the qualitative experts' input to quantitative output, a valuable information to be used in decision making.

This Thesis supports thus a sustainable development paradigm change by providing evidence about the importance of redefining islands' energy and transport systems in an integrated manner. It highlights the available synergies, provides modelled projections for the future and evidence to understand available strategies according to specialists. It is an attempt to provide science-based input to influence sustainable development strategies for the island societies, with measurable impacts for the economies and environments.