Clean energy offers boost for remote island nations
Many islands are blessed with large amounts of sun, wind, and water, making renewable energy a promising solution, Guevara-Stone writes. One small island off the coast of Africa has embraced these resources, most notably through an innovative hybrid hydro-wind system.
The town of La Frontera is seen in this general view on the Canary Island of El Hierro.
Santiago Ferrero/Reuters/File
Islands confront some of the most difficult energy challenges. Their size and remoteness means they pay extremely high energy costs for often unreliable and dirty energy. Yet many islands are blessed with large amounts of sun, wind, and water, making renewable energy a promising solution. One small island off the coast of Africa has embraced these resources, most notably through an innovative hybrid hydro-wind system.
The smallest and most remote of Spain鈥檚 Canary Islands, El Hierro (pop. 10,700) is a land of lava-sculpted rocks, cliff-lined shores, and crystal clear waters. It is a diver鈥檚 paradise, yet remains relatively untouched by tourism. In the early 1980s, the island took its first environmental stance, opting for a development model based on respect for the island鈥檚 heritage and conserving its natural resources. 鈥淎t the time, these guidelines seemed to be in contradiction to the social and economic dynamics of the Canary Islands that were seeking to attract mass tourism built on a foundation of a spectacular real estate business,鈥� the President of the El Hierro Island Council, Tomas Padr贸n,聽. 鈥淚t now gives us great satisfaction to be able to say that we have seen that the road chosen by the people of El Hierro was the right one and we are proud of living in harmony with a natural habitat that has remained largely unaffected by the hand of man.鈥澛�
In 1997, El Hierro was the first in the Canary Islands to adopt a sustainable development plan to protect its environmental and cultural richness, prompting UNESCO to declare the entire island a biosphere reserve in 2000. Yet the island was still importing and burning 6,000 tonnes of diesel per year, emitting 18,700 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Twenty percent of the electrical energy consumed ran three聽聽to generate water for drinking and irrigation. So a lack of energy on El Hierro not only meant not being able to turn on the lights; it also meant suffering from a scarcity of water and thus food.聽
The government of El Hierro realized conservation wasn鈥檛 enough; it needed to take things a step further and become a 100 percent energy-self-sufficient island. Fortunately, Padr贸n was not only president of El Hierro鈥檚 local government, but also knew a bit about electricity as he worked at the island鈥檚 electric company. With some research and education, Padr贸n and the new Department for Alternative Energy Research convinced people of the viability of a hydro-wind system.
A public-private partnership was formed between the Island Council, the Spanish energy company Endesa, and the Canary Islands Technological Institute to develop the project, called Gorona del Viento.
El Hierro now has five wind turbines with a combined installed capacity of 11.5 megawatts soon to provide the majority of the electricity for the island. When wind production exceeds demand, excess energy will pump water from a reservoir at the bottom of a volcanic cone to another reservoir at the top of the volcano 700 meters above sea level. The upper reservoir stores over 132 million gallons of water. The stored water acts as a battery. When demand rises and there is not enough wind power, the water will be released to four hydroelectric turbines with a total capacity of 11 MW.
The entire project, expected to come online this year, is projected to generate聽聽the island鈥檚 basic energy needs鈥攆or residents, farming cooperatives, fruit and fish canneries, and the 60,000 tourists who visit every year. Any excess electricity will be used to desalinate water at the island鈥檚 three desalination plants, delivering almost 3 million gallons of water a day, enough for drinking water and to cover part of the irrigation needs.
While energy storage via pumped hydro is not new鈥攑lants already exist in numerous countries around the world鈥擡l Hierro鈥檚 is the first major plant not to use conventionally generated electricity. The hydro-wind plant had to pass聽聽to make sure it didn鈥檛 negatively affect the ecosystem of the area. The project developers had to remove and replant Macronesian heaths鈥攏ative shrubland habitat, replant protective embankments, and protect a certain variety of cypress.
Besides reliable electricity, more fresh water, and improved agricultural opportunities, the Gorona del Viento partnership expects to earn over聽聽a year in electricity sales, and save almost聽a year in diesel imports. Since the whole project cost about $93 million, half of which was funded by a European Union government grant, project partners will recoup their investment relatively quickly. Once the system is paid off, the revenue from the project, aside from the amount used for system maintenance, will be put back into the local economy.
El Hierro鈥檚 next goal is to replace all 4,500 of El Hierro鈥檚 cars with electric vehicles. According to Javier Morales, El Hierro鈥檚 councilman for sustainability, if they sell electricity at the same price as gas, they can recoup the necessary聽聽in infrastructure costs in 10 years. The EV batteries will be charged with excess energy from the hydro-wind plant. "The whole system will be integrated," Morales told聽. "It's beyond green. When the power plant and the car system interact, it will be like galaxies colliding."
The island has also embarked on a solar thermal program to replace electric water heaters and a PV rooftop program. Future plans include having all the island鈥檚 agricultural cooperatives convert their fields to organic production (they have already signed on to the plan), with each farm having a biodigester that converts waste into methane for fuel and fertilizer.
"At first, it was simply an issue of becoming more self-sufficient," Padr贸n told聽. "We were completely dependent on outside deliveries and could be cut off at a moment's notice. But then with the global energy crisis, and climate change, and everything else that's happened, we've realized it has a lot more value."
El Hierro鈥檚 hydro-wind plant does have a lot more value. It is serving as a role model for renewable energy projects in other isolated communities.聽聽are under consideration in the Greek islands of Icaria and Crete, and Portugal鈥檚 Madeira. 鈥淭he 鈥楨l Hierro 100% Renewable Energies鈥� Project will make our island the first in Europe to be supplied with renewable energies,鈥� Padr贸n said in his presentation to UNESCO, 鈥渢urning it into a worldwide benchmark in implementing energy self-sufficiency and autonomy systems based on clean energy sources.鈥�