In the summer of 2004 energy history was written on Utsira, when ten households on this island west of Haugesund became part of a pioneering project which is providing electricity solely from wind turbines and hydrogen.
The demonstration project was scheduled to run for two years, but it has subsequently been extended until spring 2008 – allowing us to gain more valuable experience and competence about wind and hydrogen as energy carriers.
Energy revolution
The remote, windswept island off the west coast of Norway is not the first place you’d look for the start of the energy revolution.
But this small island community with 240 inhabitants is where one of the most exciting projects ever developed by Hydro and its partners is being tested. The project looks towards a future independent of fossil fuel.
It’s the island's windy location that makes Utsira a natural choice for wind power production, and the wind turbines installed produce a significant excess of power under optimal conditions.
However, as is the case with other sources of renewable energy, power production is unstable; when there is too little or too much wind the turbines won’t run.
Hydrogen storage
Hydro has found a way around this problem. On Utsira, excess power is stored as chemical energy in the form of hydrogen.
When it’s windy, electrolysers produce hydrogen for storage, and when it's calm, a hydrogen engine and a fuel cell convert the hydrogen back to electricity.
The Utsira project is outstanding in that ten households receive all their electricity from renewable sources in a closed system. The power consumption of the islanders varies, but the stored hydrogen ensures that sufficient renewable power can be generated at any time – even when consumption is high and wind activity is minimal.
The hydrogen that ensures stable power supply, is produced from water and electricity from one of the two 600-kilowatt wind turbines, by means of an electrolyser. The excess power from the turbines is sold on the electricity market.
The local community has welcomed the project to their island. The necessary infrastructure – roads, water and electricity supply and the foundations for the wind turbines were set up during the course of 2003.
Project idea/aim
The aim of the project is to demonstrate an autonomous energy system and to integrate established and new technology with renewable energy sources to create a viable renewable energy system.
