Welcome back to the Galápagos Diaries. In the first installment, we introduced you to the impetus behind our Ecuadorian journey. This chapter explores some of the energy sources that currently exist in the Galápagos Islands and the likelihood of ERGAL (Renewable Energy for Galápagos) reaching an expeditive and ambitious goal: that 100% of the islands’ electricity to come from fossil-free sources via a combination of solar, wind, and bio-diesel energy alternatives by the year 2015.

By Nick Wolfe and Osea Nelson

Our apartment for the month was nestled in the highlands of Buena Vista, a few miles inland from the main port city of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. Each day the journey into town provided breathtaking views of a boundless ocean and miles of pristine coastline. Though mesmerized by attractive vegetation, lush forests, and enticing clear waters shielding vibrant reefs, Osea and I remained devoted to the question before us-how realistic is ERGAL’s energy goals for the Galápagos Islands?

SOLAR PV

ERGAL’s master plan is to have large utility-scale installations on three of the islands. Currently, a variety of smaller distributed generation systems exist on the main island. The first solar photovoltaic (PV) project sites we visited included the Naval Captain’s port headquarter building, Charles Darwin Research Station, and the Japanese Marine Station, JICA.

Upon arrival, we toured the naval headquarters and inspected the ground-based PV array. While holding a very prominent location visible from the main tourist pier downtown, it appeared to be in good working condition. The naval officers would not allow our investigation to go deep enough to collect actual performance data from the 4 kW of power it provided. 

Next we traveled to the world-famous Charles Darwin Research Station, which boasts several different PV installations at the compound. A small 1-kW array is set up near the tour entrance, featuring an inverter mounted in a clear display box so that the output can be viewed by station visitors. While the array served as a nice technological demonstration, it was not well-maintained and proved not to be a substantial source of power output.

Osea observed some of the administration buildings and living quarters equipped with various small PV arrays. The main office complex of Charles Darwin Research Station featured a very nice 6-kW array mounted on the front entrance of the building-a system installed by the same Japanese researchers responsible for the Marine Station site next on our list.

A bus ride across town ended at the Japanese Marine Station, JICA. As we ventured out towards the long and beautiful boardwalk to the main beach, we inspected a pole-mounted 4-kW PV array. Like the arrays we discovered elsewhere, we were not able to precisely find out the exact output from the panels.

Back in the apartment, Osea and I compared our observations from the day. It was clear that while the handful of solar PV arrays on the island of Santa Cruz are a noble starting point, they are not nearly expansive enough to provide the utility-grade solar necessary to completely overcome the diesel generation by the 2015 deadline.

WIND

The following day we traveled to San Cristobal Island to meet with the directors of the provincial electricity company Elecgalapagos SA. We wanted to discuss the operation and performance of their wind site. Transportation to San Cristobal required a choppy 3-hour boat ride from Santa Cruz over open water in a cramped watercraft. We remained happy and hungry for adventure while diesel fumes and equilibrium challenges left several other passengers seasick.

Upon arriving at the main headquarters, we gave attention to several topics regarding the energy crisis, including the government’s role in the expansion of clean power and overall thoughts from the community on the positive effects of clean energy.

In October of 2007, the first wind energy project in all of Ecuador began operation on the second-most populous island of San Cristobal. The United Nations Development Program and members of the e8 Group funded more then half of the 2.4-MW project while the other portion came from national government funds and voluntary contributions.

Located in the highlands of the island, the site consists of three on-shore mounted turbines that together contain the highest consistent wind-capacity factors. It is currently owned by the private entity EOLICSA but will transfer its assets to Elecgalapagos SA in 2014. The three 800-kW wind turbines generate 6,600 MWh/year and reduce diesel consumption on the island for electricity by 52 percent.

The discussion with Elecgalapagos SA revolved around the obstacles in achieving energy independence for the islands and also outlined some of the unique challenges to the Galápagos Islands. Questions to the speakers were followed by a tour of the five main diesel generators on the site. This impressive and noisy set of heavy duty Caterpillar machines provides the bulk majority of the island’s daily electricity. One of the main obstacles here is wind intermittency - the island experiences relatively zero wind three months out of every year.

After touring the local site, we traveled up to the highlands to see the wind turbines firsthand. Precipitation prevented a full view of the site, but we were astonished by the array we could distinguish through the thickening clouds and fog. To complete our site tour and data collection, we ventured to one of the operating turbines and observed the internal electronics and generation systems modeled inside.

A SKEPTIC PUBLIC?

Overall, the San Cristobal project established the first utility-scale renewable source for the islands that set precedent for future projects and continuing wind developments on the main island. We discovered that, although many of the local residents are cognizant of the importance of protecting their environment, attempts at displacing the diesel generation with renewable energy brings its own public relations battle to San Cristobal. With the slow and gradual process that is social change, residents are quick to blame the turbines for problems with the generators or any other part of their electrical grid. New technologies are frequently met with skepticism and possibly with resistance. In our experiences communicating with local residents and workers, many were critical of relying on these new energy sources. We really couldn’t help but wonder how the community’s apprehension might affect Ecuador’s energy future.

In the next chapter we will discuss the remaining vision of future projects involving wind, solar, and biofuel on the other islands.