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March 21st, 2007

It’s not rocket science, folks, as I’ve been saying for years…

The “water battery” is a great way to go. If I could build any system I wanted for my own property, that’s what I would do. Some of the time, my “battery” would be charged for free, when it rains. The rest of the time, excess power that was generated from the wind and the sun would pump water up the hill, charging the “battery.” Ducks would swim in the “battery.” There might even be a tire (or ‘tyre’ in New Zealandese) island in the middle of the “battery” full of weird and wonderful plants. The “battery” would look like a beautiful pond to most people. There’s no need to frighten people by calling it an aquatic microclimate that can store intermittent surges of clean energy!

Anyway, hats off to Spain.

They would be able to avoid some of the intermittent generation aspects of their current plan with linear induction wave buoys, but that simple technology, for some reason, isn’t available yet. In this case, even with the losses associated with pumping that water up hill, it seems like wind alone is enough. Spain could always add the wave component in the future.

Via: Yahoo / AFP:

El Hierro, one of the smallest of Spain’s Canary Islands, is to receive 100 percent of its electricity supply from renewable energy sources, the Madrid government said Tuesday.

As part of a plan through to 2009, El Hierro will soon be able to rely on a combination of hydroelectricity and wind power to generate its electricity, the industry ministry said.

“El Hierro will be the first island in the world totally supplied by renewable energy,” the ministry said, without specifying when the scheme would actually be up and running.

The island will rely on a system involving two reservoirs to power hydroelectic stations, a wind farm and a pumping system.

“The bulk of the energy injected into the distribution network will emanate from the hydroelectric plant” with capacity of 10 megawatts, the ministry said.

The wind farm will generate electricity for the pumping station that will pump water to the two reservoirs that feed the hydroelectric stations, the ministry explained.

Excess wind energy will be used to power two desalination plants.

An existing diesel-powered plant on the island, population 10,500, will be maintained for emergencies if water and wind supplies run short.

“Using this system, we can transform a intermittent energy source into a controlled and constant supply of electricity,” the ministry said of the 54.3 million euro (65 million dollar) scheme which is designed to cut the island’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by 18,700 tonnes.

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