Islands of the Future

The Orkney Islands north of Scotland have taken a different route. The archipelago is a rugged place. The winds roar here incessantly and the Atlantic breakers have created a craggy cliff coastline. Situated in the east of the main island of the Orkneys is the small town of Stromness. It’s here that an institution is based that’s unique in Europe: the EMEC, the European Marine Energy Centre.

It’s not only small islands, though, that have the chance of solving the crucial issue of energy for the future, as is shown by the example of Iceland. With its wealth of volcanoes and glaciers, the island has all the favourable preconditions you could ask for. There are now five large-scale geothermal power stations on the island, which convert volcanically heated water into electricity.

On the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic the inhabitants are converting an irrigation system from the 15th century into a future-age energy storage facility. For 600 years the rainy north of the island has been linked to the populous but dry south by a series of small canals.

The sun-drenched Canary island of El Hierro has achieved what the whole continent is dreaming of: it produces all its electricity from wind, water and solar energy. The trade winds there are very seldom still, so the Canaries are predestined for wind energy.

Samsø in the Baltic is the energy paragon among Europe’s islands. At the end of the 1990s the 4,000 inhabitants had already decided to take the matter of energy supplies into their own hands. Using wind turbines, straw-fuelled thermal power stations and what are called ‘cows’ milk heat exchangers’, they have progressively tapped all the clean energy sources the island has to offer.