Island of the Future

The sun-drenched Canary island of El
Hierro has achieved what the whole
continent is dreaming of: it produces
all its electricity from wind, water and
solar energy.

The Orkney Islands north of Scotland have taken a different route. The archipelago is a rugged place.

On the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic the inhabitants are converting an irrigation system from the 15th century into a future-age energy storage facility.

Samsø in the Baltic is the energy paragon among Europe's islands. At the end of the 1990s the 4,000 inhabitants had already decided to take the matter of energy supplies into their own hands.

It's not only small islands, though, that
have the chance of solving the crucial
issue of energy for the future, as is
shown by the example of Iceland. With
its wealth of volcanoes and glaciers, the
island has all the favourable preconditions you could ask for.