From pv magazine 07-08
It is widely recognized that small islands are at the forefront of the climate crisis. Despite making a negligible contribution to global warming they are disproportionally affected by its worst consequences.
If the rest of the world does not make the most of the small window of time during which global average temperature in the 21st century can be capped at 1.5 C, the climate impact that small islands are already experiencing will arrive worldwide. Small islands should be the focus of global attention and should be supported in their fight against existential challenges.
At Greening the Islands, we have been pioneering the concept of islands as laboratories of innovative solutions that could be scaled and replicated everywhere.
Key assetRenewable energy is a key asset for both climate change adaptation and mitigation. As some of the effects of climate change are already irreversible, small-island progress will be instrumental in increasing the world’s ability to resist further disruption.
In addition to offering climate resilience, the transition to renewable energy is a matter of energy access, security, and sustainable development.
The vulnerability of small islands is due to structural disadvantages that have lately been compounded by global economic, energy, and health crises. Such nations are typically net importers of fossil fuels for their power and transportation and their power systems have low efficiency. Consequently, energy costs can be several times higher than in larger states. In fact, small and remote islands have some of the highest average costs of electricity in the world.
The impact of fossil fuel price volatility and unstable supply is exacerbated by the isolation, limited dimensions, and low diversification of small-island markets, which contributes to keeping island economies fragile and constantly exposed to the high cost of debt. There are also the increasingly pressing issues of water scarcity and food security.
As a result of such challenges, small islands exemplify the full potential of the energy transition: renewable energy is not just bound to the power sector, where it can reduce generation costs, improving security and efficiency. More broadly, it is paramount for sustainability and economic revitalization.
Very importantly, the different sectors of island economies cannot be considered in isolation. Renewable energy is the thread that empowers circularity, resilience, and economy-wide decarbonization – as in the water-energy-food-ecosystems nexus. This is where there is a lesson to be learned for all societies seeking a sustainable future.
To achieve net zero, the world needs to electrify as much as possible, which requires considerable progress on power grids, energy storage, smart systems, and digitalization. On islands, electrification has even more weight and can contribute to creating opportunities for young people to stay or even arrive from other nations.
The vulnerability of small-island states offers an unprecedented opportunity to lead the transition to 100% renewables. By harnessing rich natural resources and exploiting innovative technology, islands can become energy-independent, reducing costs, creating new jobs, diversifying economies, and stimulating sustainable local value chains.
Renewable islandsThe energy transition is change through a period of time that will not take forever. Global climate action and sustainability debates are increasingly focused on accelerating toward 100% renewables. Island nations are demonstrating strong leadership by setting some of the world’s most ambitious goals for decarbonization of the energy sector.
While some energy systems already run on 100% renewables for limited periods, stable, 24/7 renewable energy systems still seem a distant prospect. This is particularly evident on the Canary Islands, the Azores, the Orkney Islands, Hawaii, and other islands.
Concrete case studies are essential and Greening the Islands believes small islands are uniquely placed to showcase the technical and economic feasibility of 100% renewable energy systems. We also think their potential to collectively contribute to the global target of tripling renewable energy generation capacity by 2050, set out at the United Nations’ COP28 (Conference of Parties) climate summit, should not be underestimated. That is why Greening the Islands launched its 100% RES Islands Initiative at New York Climate Week 2023.
The ambition is to create a model to overcome key barriers that slow the progress of islands, such as limited access to finance and inadequate financing mechanisms, lack of appropriate policies and regulations promoting innovative technologies, complex authorization processes, and a lack of long-term power purchase agreements and cost compensation systems. All of those hurdles deter energy service providers from making the switch to clean power.
Greening the Islands aims to help such territories ease their dependency on public funding by accelerating the deployment of renewable energy through a standard and structured methodology. Our advocacy work also spotlights the opportunities for industrial companies and private finance.
The objective is to contribute to concrete results that provide reliable financial and technical information to drive a pipeline of projects and bolster attractiveness to investors. Roadmaps based on the detailed analysis of an individual island’s current energy context are developed and presented to stakeholders. Spatial and environmental constraints, the potential from available renewable resources, and forecasts of electricity demand based on the potential future integration of complementary systems in sectors such as water and mobility are all included.
All available renewable energy sources are considered, based on diversification and decentralization and looking at both onshore and offshore technology. Limited land area restrains large scale projects on small islands which instead have significant offshore potential. The exclusive economic zones of small-island developing states are, on average, around 28 times larger than their landmass.
Greening the Islands’ methodology aims to identify tangible projects and simplify authorization processes through collaboration with the main local stakeholders, including civil society, utilities, and also citizens.
We are currently working with the Mauritian island of Rodrigues, in the Indian Ocean, and Netherlands territory Curacao, in the Caribbean. We disseminated ongoing results and identified roadmaps at COP28 and the fourth UN Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4), via high-level events co-organized with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA), achieving extraordinary ministerial participation.
Greening the Islands is collaborating with like-minded organizations such as the Global Renewables Alliance, the Blue Planet Alliance, the German Solar PV Association, and the Canary Islands Institute of Technology.
Frontrunner islandsGreening the Islands’ preliminary analysis suggests Curacao and Rodrigues could achieve more than 80% renewable electricity penetration by 2030, even with constraints such as land usage and protected areas. In both cases, ground-mounted and rooftop PV could reach a share of more than 50% of the electricity produced as early as 2030 and be complemented by onshore wind, which offers an effective solution to spatial constraints.
The 100% mark could be obtained by 2035 by adding offshore wind and ocean energy technology to the mix. Within a 100% renewable power mix, solar and wind complement each other to ensure power generation under different meteorological conditions. Factoring in offshore systems – both bottom-fixed and floating technology – wind power could contribute up to 70% of the mix with the remaining 30% covered by solar.
To ensure continuity of supply and optimized use of variable-output renewables, energy storage systems – particularly batteries but potentially including other approaches – represent crucial enablers. They are fundamental to shutting down diesel generators completely and turning them into back-up systems.
Modeled scenarios highlight a surplus of renewable electricity that could serve other sectors, such as water desalination or green hydrogen production.
On Curacao and Rodrigues alone, transitioning to fully renewables systems could unlock investment potential of hundreds of millions of euros. It has been estimated the resulting power generation cost would be lower than current levels, benefiting local populations and providing returns for private investors contributing to finance capital expenditure.
The scale of island projects could be larger than investors generally think. Also, as World Bank delegates reported at the UN/DESA-Greening the Islands side event at SIDS4, a new concept of joint tendering is set to enable small islands to attract more investment.
Next stepsAt SIDS4, the most important island conference of the decade, Greening the Islands was glad to see some of its recommendations included in the final conference document: the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS.
The conference paper stresses the need for renewable energy for small islands, and underlines the relevance of the water-food-energy nexus, innovative solutions, and energy efficient transport, as well as recognizing the role of the private sector and calling for a phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies.
Advocacy and cooperation efforts are still essential to enable small islands worldwide to transition to 100% renewables, which continues to be one of Greening the Islands’ top priorities.
Large investment will be required but the costs associated with fossil fuels – including transport, subsidies, repercussions on health and environment – are much higher. Those funds could be more effectively allocated to reinforce local industry and promote sustainable supply chains.
Resources should be redirected to finance the initial capital expenditure required to deploy renewables, beginning with redirecting funds wasted on fossil fuel subsidies. Developed nations must fulfil their climate finance pledges and mechanisms for climate-related loss and damage should prioritize the devastating consequences that islands already face.
Guarantee mechanisms, public-private partnerships, and multistakeholder cooperation, with the active involvement of local and international private sector financiers, are all crucial for the effective de-risking of island investments.
Greening the Islands will soon begin talks with investors in Curacao about a strategic workshop involving government, local, and regional stakeholders, international investors, and developers. We also look forward to upcoming engagements at New York Climate Week 2024 and COP29, to announce new islands that will join us in this journey and we will continue disseminating results.
About the authors: Gianni Chianetta and Francesco Luise lead the Greening the Islands Foundation. They support island sustainability and self-sufficiency by promoting innovative solutions and “nexus-smart” projects, strengthening multistakeholder cooperation, and empowering a platform to share knowledge, disseminate good practice, and raise awareness about island challenges and opportunities.
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