The Paradox of Island Energy
When most people pick their next island getaway, they consider the water temperature at the beaches and perhaps the prices of the hotels, but very few will consider where the island actually gets its power from.
When looking at it superficially, it should be pretty easy. Islands have an abundance of renewable energy sources depending on their location. Sun, wind, geothermal, tidal, and wave power are often more accessible on islands than anywhere else in the world. But in reality, most islands continue to be heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, which comes at a high cost: volatile fuel prices, supply insecurity, and an outsized vulnerability to climate change.
However, islands don’t have to be passive victims of the energy transition. In fact, some are becoming living laboratories where new energy models can be tested. These islands experiment with technologies that can then later be replicated at larger scale on mainland grids. We’ve scoured the oceans, from the tropical South Pacific to the chilly South Atlantic, and have found seven islands relying on innovations that could potentially change the world.
Hawai’i & Ta’u: How to Break Free from Oil
Hawaii and Ta’u are two islands on the opposite sides of the Pacific but share a common challenge: dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuel imports. Both chose to defy the idea that oil dependence was their destiny. And so, both are now demonstrating that even remote, resource-limited islands can transition towards reliable, renewable energy.
sland Power: A How-To Guide for the Renewable Energy Transition
Hawai’i: Diversifying for Scale
With 67% of Hawai'i's electricity coming from imported petroleum the state’s lawmakers recognized the danger that the island was in. So in 2015 Hawai'i passed a ground-breaking law requiring 100% renewable power by 2045. To some this may sound like too bold of an ambition but the island is known for its fighting spirit. And so, it is setting a clear path for a large-scale transformation.
Unlike most U.S. states, Hawai‘i’s islands are not interconnected by power cables, so each one must balance its own grid independently. This makes electricity particularly expensive: residents pay an average of 41¢ per kilowatt-hour, more than double the U.S. average, driven by dependence on imported oil, small isolated grids, and high infrastructure costs. Prices are consistently high across the islands, with only slight variation between utilities. These challenges underscore why Hawai‘i’s clean energy push is not just ambitious but necessary.
Across the archipelago, progress is already visible:
- Kaua‘i: Solar + storage now meets 100% of daytime electricity demand, supported by one of the U.S.’s largest solar-battery projects.
- Big Island: The Puna Geothermal Venture provides 26–46 MW of baseload power, complemented by the Hawi Wind Farm delivering 10.6 MW of clean energy.
- Maui: The Kuihelani Solar + Storage project combines 60 MW of solar with 240 MWh of batteries, powering about 15% of the island.
Beyond generation, Hawai‘i’s integrated grid planning, diversified resources, and forward-looking legislation ensure resilience across the archipelago.
Ta’u (American Samoa): Resilience through Microgrids
Ta’u may be a tiny island in the South Pacific with fewer than 600 residents but it demonstrates that breaking free from oil is possible. Not long ago, the island was entirely reliant on diesel generators, making its electricity supply unreliable. At times fuel shipments would be halted for months, due to storm delays and mechanical issues, forcing residents and essential services to ration electricity. In 2016, all of this changed when a 1.4 MW solar microgrid with 6 MWh of Tesla battery storage was deployed, providing three full days of backup without sunlight.
The microgrid was financed through a combination of grants and local development funding. Key partners included the American Samoa Economic Development Authority, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and the Department of the Interior, while ASPA (American Samoa Power Authority) operates the system.
Ta’u offset nearly 110,000 gallons of diesel and dramatically reduced power outages. All within a year! Today the island runs on 100% renewable energy, powering homes, schools, healthcare facilities, and businesses without interruption. While exact numbers on electricity rate reductions vary, real-world data suggests that diesel-powered electricity in American Samoa has surged as high as 44 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to just 13 cents on the U.S. mainland, so cutting fuel dependency delivers meaningful savings. This shift is particularly impactful in Ta‘ū, where such elevated rates are common.
Ireland & Cyprus: How to Build a Smarter Grid
As islands, and regions, scale up renewable energy they begin to realize that clean generation alone won’t be enough. In fact, the electricity system itself must be able to manage variable supply while maintaining stability and efficiency. That’s where a windswept island in the Atlantic and a (overly) sunny island in the Aegean illustrate two distinct approaches to this challenge.
Ireland: Stabilizing a Wind-Powered Grid
In a country where one-third of its electricity comes from wind, it would be plausible to think that traditional fossil fuel plants shutting down shouldn’t be an issue. The wind could cover those shut downs, right? However, this is actually causing the grid to face a low-inertia problem as the conventional generators of those plants naturally stabilize the system by providing rotational inertia, something that wind and solar cannot do on their own.
Ireland is fighting this problem by deploying Low Carbon Inertia Services, such as synchronous condensers, which are giant spinning machines that mimic the stabilizing properties of the conventional generator. One has already been installed at Moneypoint Power Station, a former coal plant, where the world’s largest flywheel, is now supporting the region’s grid stability. There are even future plans for offshore wind near the plant to produce green hydrogen, which would provide flexible, zero-carbon power.
These investments aren’t just about resilience. They’re also about cost. Ireland consistently ranks among the most expensive electricity markets in Europe, in part because of reliance on imported fossil fuels, limited grid interconnections, and surging demand from data centers. By stabilizing the system and enabling more renewable integration, technologies like synchronous condensers and future projects such as offshore wind–powered hydrogen can help reduce dependence on costly imports while cutting emissions.
Cyprus: Unlocking Solar Potential with Storage and Smart Management
While Ireland is not exactly known for having the most sun, Cyprus has the blessing (or curse) of 300 sunny days per year, one of Europe’s highest solar capacities per capita. But in 2024 alone, nearly 29% of renewable electricity was curtailed on the island due to weak grid infrastructure and limited storage. Meanwhile, the summer heat spikes electricity demand for cooling and the high saline air strains equipment, compounding grid challenges.
For years, Cyprus pinned its hopes on the Great Sea interconnector, a planned 1,200 km subsea cable linking Israel and Greece, to mitigate the isolation, but sadly political issues have stalled the project.
Now, Cyprus is pursuing internal solutions by investing in:
- energy storage projects, including large-scale batteries and pumped hydro, to make better use of daytime solar.
- demand-response programs, energy communities, and behind-the-meter solar, bringing flexibility closer to the point of consumption.
These initiatives demonstrate that smart systems to manage, store, and share energy are just as critical as installing renewable generation.
Ireland and Cyprus show that building a smarter grid isn’t just a technical upgrade but a necessary evolution to fully realize the promise of renewables, ensuring reliability, affordability, and resilience.
El Hierro & Falkland Islands: How to Maximize Renewables with Hybrid Systems
Remote islands are very much like ships at sea. They’re isolated, exposed to the elements and must be self-reliant at all costs. Just like these ships, remote islands lack a lifeline to the mainland and also must in many cases deal with limited space and harsh climates. To cope, these communities will often turn to hybrid systems, which blend multiple technologies to keep the lights on with stability and resilience.Two very different islands in opposing parts of the Atlantic show how it can be done.
El Hierro: Pioneering Wind-Hydro Autonomy
Once considered the edge of the known world, El Hierro, the southernmost of Spain’s Canary Islands, faced a daunting question: how could 11,000 residents power daily life without expensive, polluting fuel imports?
Their answer was revolutionary to say the least: a wind-hydro hybrid power station called Gorona del Viento, which launched in 2013. The concept is simple: when the winds blow strong, turbines generate electricity while pumping water uphill into a high reservoir. And when there’s no winds, the stored water flows back down, turning turbines to keep the island’s electricity humming.
So what are the impacts of Gorona? Each year, the system replaces about 40,000 barrels of oil, avoiding nearly 18,700 tons of CO₂ emissions. While the project delivers around €1.8 million in avoided fuel costs annually, electricity prices for residents are not significantly lower than elsewhere in the Canary Islands, since rates are set at the national level. In fact, the upfront investment in renewables initially increased generation costs in El Hierro’s isolated system. Still, the benefits are clear: greater energy security, reduced dependence on imported diesel, and the ability to generate surplus clean power without passing additional costs on to consumers.
El Hierro proves that when you work with what nature gives you, small islands can become global pioneers of energy autonomy.
Falkland Islands: Microgrids for Extreme Conditions
The Falkland Islands are known well for their remote location and cold, windswept climate, and, of course, the islands’ 1 million penguin inhabitants. What most don’t know is that the Falkland Islands also are successfully fighting against a long dependence on imported diesel, which was expensive, vulnerable to disruption, and environmentally costly.
With no mainland grid connection, the solution was the Sand Bay Wind Farm, a hybrid microgrid that combines:
- Wind turbines as the workhorse generators.
- Battery storage to smooth peaks and dips.
- Diesel backup as the safety net when winds fall silent.
Since 2007, this system has delivered over 100 GWh of clean energy, supplying over 30% of the capital’s electricity. With new expansions, that share will soon exceed 50% annually, with some periods reaching 100% renewables.
Harsh winds, salty air, and logistical hurdles may wear down equipment, but the payoff is undeniable: long-term stability for residents.
Gökçeada: How to Achieve Energy Autonomy
This island may not be well known, even though it is Turkey’s largest, but it is, in fact, also a living laboratory for energy autonomy. At first glance, Gökçeada’s energy system looks modest: just 1.8 MW of local generation (two 900 kW wind turbines and a 10 kW solar array) against 6 MWh of daily consumption. Should the mainland cable ever fail, four diesel generators, each 770 kVA, stand by as a last line of defense.
But instead of accepting this fragile balance, this island has decided to step into the future by joining the VPP4Islands project, which tests Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) in real world conditions. The island has begun weaving together wind, solar, diesel backup, and a 100 kWh battery storage system, all coordinated by a real-time digital control platform.
What makes it pioneering is the digital layer:
- Virtual Energy Storage Systems (VESS) simulate larger storage by flexibly managing demand.
- A Digital Twin (DT) mirrors the grid in real-time, enabling predictive operation and fault prevention.
- Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) secures and validates transactions between energy producers and consumers, laying groundwork for peer-to-peer energy trading.
So Gökçeada isn’t just getting an upgrade for its grid. It’s showing how smart software can unlock resilience without massive new infrastructure. Something that islands facing similar challenges can replicate and scale. Gökçeada offers a glimpse of a future where energy autonomy comes not from size, but from intelligence.
Powering the Future, Island Style
We’ve now traveled across many seas to find seven islands proving that the energy transition is not just a challenge but an opportunity to experiment and innovate. Each island faced unique constraints, like isolation, limited resources, harsh climates, and/or grid fragility. However, they’ve turned these obstacles into opportunities.
The story of these islands should be a reminder to us all that what may start as a small experiment at the edge of the world can very well influence the energy systems of tomorrow. By experimenting with diverse technologies, integrating smart management, and prioritizing resilience, islands are proving that the future of energy isn’t just a distant vision, but is already being lived and tested.
