El Hierro – an island powered entirely by renewables
An island entirely powered by renewable energy, you dreamed? The island of El Hierro, Canary islands, does!
The hydro-turbine works very simple: when there is a lot of wind, the electricity used to pump excess water into an upper basin (with a yield of 90%). And when there is little wind, water down towards the lower … to producing electricity (with a yield of 90%) “The marriage of water and wind … A similar project is underway on the island of Reunion and the island of Okinawa to Japan was also equipped with a pump storage power plant in sea water.
Work is underway in El Hierro, the hydro-turbine will be opened in about 10 months. 5 x 2.2 MW wind turbines pumping station = enough electricity to meet the entire electricity demand of the 11,000 inhabitants of the island of El Hierro and of + 60,000 tourists who visit the island each year (600,000 in 10 years). The second phase of the project: moving to a fully electric fleet installation of +500 square meters of solar collectors to generate hot water.
The total project (including a desalination plant for sea water for irrigation of crops) is 65 million euros 16 million for 11 MW of wind (wind from the German Enercon), 38 million euros to pump-storage station (with turbines from Spanish Enercor. 38 million, including $16 million for the digging of ponds, to 13 million lines by 700 vertical meters, 9 million for turbine-pumping machines and for other projects where the digging is not necessary, the cost of the station is less), 11 million for the desalination of sea water of 65 million euros, EUR 108 per tourist for 10 years … or 49 euros per month per capita for 10 continuous years). But it’s actually much less thanks to aid from the European Union and the Spanish government, aid perfectly justified in -Given the interest of major environmental project (the island now produces its electricity with diesel super polluting diesel brought in by boat, at a cost of 2 million euros a year …). Electricity hydroéolienne will then be free … because the wind and water are free. The life of the wind exceeds 25 years. The basins of the pump storage station above the century.
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