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The works to develop the combined Wind-Hydro Power
system that will allow the island of El Hierro (Canary
Islands) to be self-sufficient in renewable energy in the
next years have already started.
The El Hierro project is developed by a consortium made up
by ITC (Technological Institute of the Canary Islands -
Coordinator), INSULA (International Scientific Council for
Island Development), Cabildo de El Hierro (EL Hierro
island Government), NTUA-RENES (National Technical
University of Athens - Unit for Renewable Energy Sources),
AREAM (Regional Agency for Energy and Environment of the
Autonomous Region of Madeira) and CRETA.
General features:
The island of El Hierro, Canary Islands (Spain), has an
area of 276 km² and a population of approximately 8.000
inhabitants. UNESCO declared it a Biosphere Reserve in
2001. The island is not grid connected, and nowadays the
electricity supply is covered through a conventional
thermal power station (diesel system: 8'285 MW). El Hierro
has a big RES potential, mainly wind, and has launched a
100% RES project for its energy supply. In order to reach
this objective, three different programmes are being
implemented:
- Energy Saving Programme
- 100% RES for the Electricity Production Programme
- Transport Programme (conversion from Fossil Fuels to
Clean Transport)
The project started with the first phase, 100% RES for
electricity supply programme. This objective can only be
reached by the integration of several RES. In this context
the following actions to are in focus:
- Implementation of a combined Wind-Hydro Power Station
- Implementation of the Solar Thermal Energy Programme
- Implementation of the PV Roof Programme
- Biofuels and hydrogen production
More than 150 European islands and more than 5 millions
inhabitants could benefit from the results of this project
(because most of the European Island are not grid
connected)
Other objectives of this project are:
- Reduction of GHG emissions
- To improve life quality on isolated islands (more than
13 million European inhabitants live on islands)
- To increase energy independency on isolated islands
(there are more than 300 inhabited islands in Europe they
represent more than 5% of the European territory)
- To demonstrate that RES integration is a way of
providing 100% energy supply on isolated islands
- To demonstrate that synergies between RES (e.g.
Wind-Hydro power stations) can highly contribute to
increase RE penetration into weak grids in isolated areas
- To demonstrate that the storage of energy in water form
is the most economic way to store energy
- To optimise the available potential of RES using them
together in integrated systems for local power supply
Within this project we have “technical” and
“non-strictly-technical” tasks.
Technical tasks:
An important part of the project is devoted to the
construction and monitoring of the Wind-Hydro Power
Station on El Hierro. Beside that, feasibility and
economic studies to build a WHPS on Crete and on Madeira
will be elaborated. Depending on the results of these
studies, these WHPS will be built in the next years, based
on the experience of El Hierro. Studies on other islands
that will join the project during its lifetime will also
be carried out (either for European and not European
islands).
The implementation of:
- the Solar Thermal Energy Programme
- the PV Programme
- and the biofuel production
are also important tasks from the technical point of view
Non-strictly-technical tasks:
Other parts of the work related to the El Hierro WHPS will
be:
- Integration and involvement of island population (in
order to guarantee the acceptability of the system)
- Socio-economic research
Another important feature is that the production
management is based on the creation of a new utility made
up by the former supplier company, the local Government
and local shareholders. In this sense, the social
dimension of energy and its new consideration as a quality
service are of particular importance.
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