A pilot test in energy self-sufficiency is under way on Utsira, a tiny windswept island off Norway’s southwestern coast. The experiment combines wind and hydrogen energy to serve 10 of the island’s 100 households.
“It’s the first autonomous experiment using only renewable energy and hydrogen,” says Bard Hammervold, communications manager for the roughly $6 million experiment, a partnership of Hydro ASA; Enercon, the German company that provided the wind turbines; and the Norwegian government. The main purpose of the Utsira experiment, says Torgeir Nakken, the Hydro physicist overseeing project R&D, “is to show that it actually delivers reliable, robust, high-quality power to customers all the time.”
“The problem with renewable energy—solar, wind—is that it is intermittent,” says Nakken. “To have a stable supply, so you can deliver even when you don’t have wind, storage is key. Hydrogen is one way of storing electrical energy.”
The Utsira setup consists of two...
