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Gorona del Viento and the journey to sustainability
General image of the island of El Hierro. In the background the community of Frontera.
They say it is an island, but anyone who has visited El Hierro knows it is really much more than that. In reality, El Hierro is a universe of its own. Floating in the Atlantic Ocean are 268 km2 of land, providing a one hour journey from the Nisdafe plateau's lush pastures and thick clouds to a volcanic landscape with dark soil and intense sunlight. Travelling down the winding Lomo Negro viewpoint road can take you to an enormous pine forest above Mar de las Calmas, which will take you back to moments of stillness that is typical of summertime in the Mediterranean. In addition, there is a luscious heathland full of towering ferns and laurel at an altitude of more than a thousand metres in Llanía; making it seem like an exact copy of a piece of the American continent.
The wind turbines at the Gorona del Viento wind farm.
The sacred tree of Garoé is a spectacle to behold on El Hierro; its juniper forest composed of trees that have been shaped and curved by the trade winds gives off a unique feel. Additionally, the Orchilla lighthouse stands tall and mighty, embodying the concept that this island is Europe's most western point. To the west lies nothing more than an expansive vastness of salt water. It could very well be because of this isolation that has led to El Hierro striving for self-sufficiency and sustainability. The notion is that you should depend on your own resources and take great care of them in order to prevent them from running out.
The water storage pool for the pumping station on the Corona del Viento wind farm.
At the level of energy supply, the idea was realised with the creation of Gorona del Viento, the company promoted by the Cabildo of the island, Endesa - which not only holds a 23% stake in the share capital but is also responsible for its operation and maintenance - the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands Regional Government, to supply the almost 11,000 inhabitants of this complex paradise. The company has a wind farm consisting of five wind turbines, with a total power of 11.5 MW; a four-turbine hydroelectric power plant, with a total capacity of 11.5 MW; and a pumping station with eight pumps and a total potential of 6 MW. On 9 August 2015, the hydro-wind plant reached the milestone of supplying the area with renewable energy for the first time and for two hours. "With the optimisations that have been made since it came into service, Gorona contributes throughout the year and provides more than half of the energy the island needs," explained Endesa's delegate in El Hierro, Juan Luis Padrón Morales, who added: "The short-term plans are to increase the generation mix with a photovoltaic power station and battery storage of about 5 MW, which would make it possible to provide 80% of electricity demand with renewable energies". The incorporation of other technologies, such as energy storage and the production of green hydrogen (H2), could culminate this exemplary and long-awaited journey towards energy independence.
Installations inside the Gorona del Viento hydroelectric power station.
On a technical level, the operation of the hydro-wind power plant is relatively easy to explain. When the wind blows, the five wind turbines feed their power into the electricity grid. The surplus is used to pump water from a lower reservoir into an upper reservoir. To contribute to the stability of the island's power grid, water from the upper reservoir passes through the turbine and returns to the lower reservoir through a pipeline. The hydraulic part, with predictable, constant production, serves to give stability to the network, since the wind resource is variable and intermittent. The gaps in demand that cannot be filled with renewable energy are filled by the Llanos Blancos thermal power plant, which runs on diesel that is brought to the island by ship. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine made people realise how important it is not to always depend on the port of La Estaca.
But in such a special part of the world, declared a Biosphere Reserve by Unesco in 2000 and a Geopark in 2014, sustainability is not limited to energy sources, but also includes economic sectors as important for the island as fishing and agriculture.
In the background the Gorona del Viento wind farm that enables the island of Hierro to be energy independent.
As the midday sun shone brightly, a fishing boat cautiously approached La Restinga, Spain’s most southerly coordinate protected by the dyke from the relentless north-easterly wind. It is midday. The brothers Jesús and José Noé Machín Gutiérrez are the owners of the boat that has just moored at a discreet wharf right opposite the "Cofradía de Pescadores" (Fisherman's Guild). They open up the hold and start to unload their catches of yellowfin tuna, abbots and amberjack. Unfortunately they had not happened across their much sought-after cousin of the tuna, the wahoo, on this trip. “We fish in the traditional way, as we have done all our lives, with live bait that we catch at dawn and then with a hand line and rod,” Jesús says. “It is very selective fishing and enables the different species to recover”, he points out.
The cold and humid climate of the Llanía region of Isla del Hierro is home to the island's livestock farms. It is surprising landscape of green pastures and dense fog and it is more typical of the cold north of the British Isles than of the Canary archipelago.
The guild consists of about 40 fishermen who work in an area where there is practically no continental shelf, which means that the water is quite shallow and that's where the big pelagic fish appear. Most of these fishermen sell their catches through the cooperative Pesca Restinga. What is not consumed on El Hierro is shipped to other larger islands, especially Tenerife, where high demand from tourism has to be met.
A group of fishermen from the Restinga Fishermen's Guild unload the day's catch in the port. The guild consists of about 40 fishermen who work in an area where there is practically no continental shelf, which means that the water is quite shallow and that's where the big pelagic fish appear. Most of these fishermen sell their catches through the cooperative Pesca Restinga. What is not consumed on El Hierro is shipped to other larger islands, especially Tenerife, where high demand from tourism has to be met.
It is not only in fishing that traditional methods are used. In agriculture the people on El Hierro are also pioneers with regard to circular economy. It is common for those who grow tropical bananas and pineapples to also have livestock that feed on the remains of the plants and use the manure of the animals as fertiliser for their plantations. Juan Antonio Morales Castañeda has a farm in Frontera, in a flat and sunny area. “Nothing is wasted here, we have to manage our resources intelligently. We do not have large areas like on other islands, where the plantations are bigger than ours, and we usually work with only a few people and without machines, which significantly reduces the farm's carbon footprint,” he says.
The banana industry is one of the mainstays of the economy of El Hierro.
In agriculture the people on El Hierro are also pioneers with regard to circular economy. It is common for banana and pineapple farmers to also keep livestock, which they feed with the remains of the plants and use the manure of the animals as fertiliser for their plantations. In the photograph Juan Antonio Morales Castañeda, who has a farm in Frontera, checks the quality of his bananas in his farm.
These plantations, which also consume electricity, will certainly benefit from the proliferation of renewable energies, and even with transport and operations yet to be electrified. When they all finally come together to form a complete puzzle, El Hierro is set to become one of the pioneers in creating a world that is entirely sustainable.
General image of the border town on the island of Hierro from the lookout point of La Llanía.
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