Wind energy development in the Canary Islands

The level of concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is expected to be twice as high by the middle of the 21st century as the value registered during the pre-industrial epoch if the current trend of emitting pollutants to the atmosphere continues. The reduction of these agents is of paramount importance and it is an essential objective in the agenda of the international political and scientific community.

Among the most significant efforts, the production and more efficient use of the energy resources and an increment of the use of Renewable Energy for the production of electric energy are fundamental. These aims have a greater priority in the context of the Canary Islands, where the shortage of conventional energy resources increases outside energy dependence in the maintenance of regional economic development. The tourist situation in the Canary Islands, with an annual income of around 9 millions of tourists, also makes it necessary to generate energy from clean sources on the archipelago, taking into account the excellent conditions existing on the islands for the development of Renewable Energy.

The local government recognizes that the RE represents a strategic sector for the development of the islands, awarding of the necessity of overcoming the insular barriers for the implementation to large scale of the RE, especially in the regulation environment.

Eventhough the Spanish Canary Islands are an isolated  archipelago of seven small islands, they have devoted local resources to investigating the best ways to move wind power into the future. They hope to serve as an example for islands and rural communities around the world.
“In the Canary Islands, the grids are weaker than in Europe, and there are islands around the world with even weaker grids,” says AEE director Alberto Ceña. “The challenge is how to integrate wind with diesel engines or fuel engines. We still need to work a lot on that. The experience of the Canary Islands is going to be very useful in the future of wind power.”
In fact, the islands were, along with Tarifa on Spain’s southernmost border, the site of the country’s first wind farms in the early 1990s. Development slowed, but the local parliament’s 2006 decision to produce 25 per cent of the region electricity from renewable energy by 2015 spurred an increase in development.

The Canary Islands Institute of Technology (ITC), a regional government research center, has continued working to develop systems that look ahead to the island’s future. “The Canary Islands are a real laboratory and can serve as the ideal platform for testing new energy technologies,” says ITC director Gonzalo Piernavieja.

One recent project involves the island of El Hierro, which has a population of 10,500. The government recently announced a plan that would enable the island to derive 100 percent of its power from renewable sources. The key will be 10 megawatts of wind power connected to a pump system. When wind blows so fiercely that locals can’t utilize all the energy, the extra power will be used to pump water up a nearby mountain to two reservoirs, one of which is a natural volcanic crater. When the wind drops, the water will fall and turn a turbine. This pumping system has been paired with other forms of electricity, but it’s never been used with wind power before. In addition, the entire system will be connected to a desalination plant to provide potable water. The dimensions of El Hierro make this small, windy, mountainous desert island the perfect laboratory for testing the new system.

 And as the Canary Islands work to become a model for islands and rural areas internationally, so Spain—and Spanish companies—hope to show the world just what the wind might bring.