page_title: El Hierro
section_title: Energy
hierarchical_section_title: El Hierro / Energy
caption_attribution_description: English: First of five wind turbines of 2.5 MW on El Hierro island five minutes after assembly. Deutsch: Erste von fünf Windkraftanlagen mit 2,5 MW Leistung auf der Insel El Hierro fünf Minuten nach der Montage. Español: Primero de cinco aerogeneradores de 2,5 MW en la isla de El Hierro cinco minutes despues del ensamblaje.
context_page_description: El Hierro, nicknamed Isla del Meridiano, is the second-smallest and farthest-south and -west of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a population of 10,968. Its capital is Valverde. At 268.51 square kilometres, it is the second-smallest of the eight main islands of the Canaries.
context_section_description: According to the Ministry for Industry, Tourism and Commerce, El Hierro hopes to become the first island in the world to be self-sufficient for electrical energy. This will be achieved through a €54 million project combining a greater than 11-megawatt wind farm and two hydroelectric projects.
  This hydro and wind-power project, created by the local Gorona del Viento El Hierro consortium with financial aid from the European Union, and officially inaugurated in 2015, consists of five E-70 wind turbines capable of producing 11.5 megawatts of wind power to supply electricity for approximately 11,000 residents, an additional number of tourists, and three water desalination facilities. The hybrid wind/pumped hydro storage system stores surplus wind power by pumping water up 700 metres (approximately 2,300 feet) to the crater of an extinct volcano.  When winds are calm or when demand exceeds supply, water is released from the crater to generate 11.3 MW of electricity, filling a smaller artificial basin created at the bottom of the extinct volcano. Water in the lower basin is then pumped back up again to the upper reservoir when there is excess wind power.
  The closed-loop hybrid wind/hydro system is expected to save approximately US$4M per year (calculated with January 2011 oil prices) previously spent on about 40,000 barrels of crude oil imported annually, attempting to make the island completely self-sufficient for electrical energy.
  2016 was the first whole year for the power plant and it reached 40.7% of the total demand, reducing consumption of diesel by 6,000 tonnes. In 2017, the share climbed to 46.5%. The installation also powers a desalination plant that provides fresh water.
  In early 2018, El Hierro covered its entire electricity demand between 25 January and 12 February with its renewable resource base, avoiding the use of polluting energy sources for more than 560 hours in 2018—and a total of almost 2,000 hours since it started operating.
  last data 2018 Blog of Roger Andrews
caption: Assembly of the first of five wind turbines with 2.5 MW each
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