Orkney produces more renewable energy than it can consume (128% in 2020); a real luxury these days. The next step for these islands in the north of Europe? Hydrogen.
Among the dreams that rock the nights of the inhabitants of these wind-whipped islands, there is one that is becoming a reality: that of making cars run and ferries sailing and fueling boilers thanks to hydrogen.
This 990 km² chain of islands is home to 22,000 inhabitants and… 700 wind turbines and 400 solar installations. But today, Orkney wants to move up a gear and has installed experimental tidal turbines. There are 34 in all, “more machines than anywhere else in the world”, underlined the Washington Post.
Today, authorities and researchers want to channel this ocean energy into coastal electrolyzers that break down water into oxygen and green hydrogen.
The tidal turbines were installed in the ideal location, where the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea meet. The Orbital 2, a 2 MW unit, the most powerful in the world, has just been connected to the network. Below, two rotors operate like underwater wind turbines. The system generates energy through powerful tides. The turbine, 74 meters long, supplies 2,000 homes and covers 7% of Orkney’s energy needs.
When, thanks to wind turbines and tidal turbines, the islands produce more energy than they consume, they transform it into green hydrogen which is used as fuel, or as energy to heat buildings. One of the objectives is to completely decarbonize the ferry network.
In the port of the capital, Kirkwall, hydrogen filling stations allow ferries to be recharged and municipal authorities to power boats, public lighting and certain municipal houses. Five vans run on hydrogen using fuel cells.
Photo above: The subarctic archipelago of Orkney, in the north of Scotland, has 67 islands, around fifteen of which are inhabited. It is off the coast of Orkney that Microsoft and Naval Group have submerged their servers as part of the Natick project, underwater data centers powered by marine energy and cooled by seawater. These northern islands ‘establish themselves as the archipelago of renewables.
