Agios Efstratios, a small island in the northern Aegean with around 250 residents, has switched from diesel generators to clean power in roughly ten months, Euronews reports. About 91% of its electricity now comes from renewables, making it the first Greek island to reach that point.
The island has no cable to the mainland grid, so it relies on a hybrid system: a 900kW wind turbine on its highest hill, a 225kW solar farm, a battery and automated controls that balance supply and demand in real time. In winter, spare power heats water stored in large tanks, so many homes no longer need to run a boiler.
The €7.23 million pilot, mostly funded by the EU, is expected to save around 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Project leaders at Greece’s Centre for Renewable Energy Sources say it shows such a switch can be done “without a very large investment”, and islands including Tilos, Ikaria and Astypalea are now following its lead.
Source: Euronews