A gas flare burns at the Shetland Gas Plant. -AFP
Strong winds and stormy seas have helped turn the Shetland Islands in the North Atlantic into a European renewable energy giant, producing more power than it knows what to do with. The tidal power underwater turbines that were completed last month are only the latest green energy project for an archipelago that has been reliant for decades on the North Sea offshore industry. Even homeowners are getting in on the act with small wind turbines in their gardens and solar panels on their roofs -- somewhat optimistically in an area where winter daylight lasts just six hours.
"We're not 100 percent self sufficient but we're quite a long way towards it," Jim Dickson, 69, told AFP at his home in the windswept village of Brae, referring to electricity generation for his own house. Dickson, who lives near the Sullom Voe oil terminal, can power the building and an electric powered Nissan Leaf car from a turbine in his garden with enough left over to feed into the island's grid when conditions are favourable. "What I make from the government for producing per kilowatt hour more than pays for what I buy from the grid, so effectively there is no power bill."
The former harbour master knows about the dangers of fossil fuels. He was winched aboard the out of control oil tanker MV Braer in 1993 during the worst cyclone on record in the North Atlantic, in an ill-fated attempt to prevent it running aground. His efforts to attach a tow rope failed and the ship crashed into the rocks at Quendale Bay, spilling 84,700 tonnes of crude oil into the sea. The nation was aghast at images of Shetland's famous seabirds drowning in black ooze. - AFP, Lerwick
Latest News