Ten households in the small island community of Utsira, west of Haugesund in Norway will become independent of electricity from the mainland this summer. On July 1, Hydro's first power plant based on a combination of wind power and hydrogen starts production on the wind-swept island - Norway's smallest municipality.
Hydro has set up this project with the support of the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority, making the small island of Utsira a showcase, both in Norway and in the rest of the world, for the development of renewable energy.
When energy production starts, two large windmills and a hydrogen unit will demonstrate to the world how a community can meet its energy demand through renewable energy. Utsira has 230 inhabitants. If all goes according to plan, other island communities will be able to set up similar wind and hydrogen plants.
Utsira has an average of only three or four days a year without wind. Although this is one of the stormiest areas of Norway, the wind can be too strong or too variable to ensure an even electricity supply at high enough voltage through wind power alone. Wind power plants in operation today depend on being able to use the normal net as back up when wind conditions are not suitable.
On Utsira, however, one windmill is sufficient both to produce enough power for the ten households in the project and to produce hydrogen at the same time. Production from the other windmill is transferred to the net, so other households can also benefit from renewable energy. In fact, Utsira will now become a net exporter of electricity.
The hydrogen is stored in a special tank. When wind conditions are not suitable for power production, a hydrogen generator and fuel cell will produce electricity for the households in the project. This will ensure a stable energy supply regardless of weather conditions.
The world-wide demand for electricity is expected to rise by around 66% over the next 20 years, which will result in a 69% increase in CO2 emissions. The increase in demand and the environmental impact it will cause are not sustainable. The Utsira project aims to show that combining wind power and hydrogen will make it possible to produce environmentally-friendly, renewable energy from wind, even when it is calm, and from the sun during the night. In the EU area alone, there are around 20 million people who live on islands with no direct connection to large central power plants, islands that may in the future be assured independent energy supplies in a similar way to the milestone project demonstrated at Utsira.
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