The good, the bad, and the somewhere-in-between
Far too many islands are not taking advantage of their renewable energy resources
The Cooperative Society Newsletter
February 2024, Issue 45
By E.G. Nadeau, Ph.D.
As I began writing this article, I was sitting at a dining room table at the Vaoto Lodge on Ofu Island (population 200) in American Samoa. American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the United States. It has a total population of about 70,000, and is near the middle of the Pacific Ocean about 15° south of the equator.
There is a U.S. National Park here that spans parts of four islands. The islands are a combination of steep jungle-covered mountains, beautiful sand beaches, and reefs with patches of vibrant living coral and colorful fish, along with cemeteries of bleached dead coral that look like underwater ghost towns – mostly thanks to global warming.
I was there with my two sons, Luc and Isaac. We were on vacation, but we were also there to learn about the islands’ people and environment.
Powering the islands
I’m particularly interested in how the islands’ inhabitants have or have not replaced fossil fuel sources of energy with clean energy, especially solar and battery storage. A few miles to the east of Ofu, the island of Ta’u has 100% clean electricity due to a solar panel array and a battery storage system. Or so I thought. According to local sources, the system is currently meeting about 80% of the island’s electricity needs, due to some glitches that are in the process of being remedied.
There was a similar solar+battery system on Ofu until a few years ago, when the battery storage unit burned to the ground. After lengthy haggling with the insurer of the system, it is about to get repaired. In the meantime, most of the island’s electrical energy has reverted to very dirty and expensive diesel fuel.
Tutu’ila, where most American Samoans live, depends on diesel fuel for the majority of its electricity. When one walks around the island, the unhealthy smell of diesel fumes is pervasive. As a whole, the territory’s goal for 100% clean energy electrification is 2045 – an incredibly unambitious goal considering the financial and health costs of diesel, and the abundant availability of solar and wind energy. A transformation that could happen in the next few years is planned to take more than 20.
The nearby island country of Samoa (if you’re interested, look up the reason why there is a U.S. territory right next to a nation with the same name) appears to be far ahead of its neighbor on the clean energy front, with the goal of achieving 100% clean electrical energy by next year.
Slow-walking
American Samoa is not the only island territory or nation that is slow-walking toward net zero energy. Despite all the negatives of fossil fuel for island energy, and the abundance of far less expensive, renewable energy resources, many of the 200,000 or so ocean islands around the world, comprising about 7% of the earth’s land surface and about 9% of its population, are in similar carbon-emitting boats. This, despite the increasing vulnerability of many of them due to rising ocean levels, hurricanes, tsunamis, and flooding, resulting from human-made global warming.
Here are a few more – bad and good – examples of approaches being taken by other island communities to clean up their sources of energy:
Examples of other approaches
Hawaii. To get to American Samoa from the mainland United States, one has to fly to Honolulu, take a left turn, and fly about another 5 ½ hours south. Hawaiian Electric Company is a monopoly utility providing electricity to all of Hawaii’s major islands except Kauai. Despite all the advantages of clean energy cited above, Hawaiian Electric has the same astoundingly weak net zero electrical energy goal of 2045 as American Samoa. Electricity fueled by diesel in Hawaii currently costs about $.43 per kilowatt hour. Homegrown solar, wind, and hydropower is about three times cheaper and much cleaner. So, go figure.
The beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai has a different story to tell. The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, owned by the island’s residents and businesses, bought out the previous, for-profit utility in 2002. Since then, it has been gradually transforming Kauai’s electrical energy system to solar, wind, hydropower, and increased energy storage. The co-op is shooting for 100% percent renewable energy by 2033, 12 years ahead of the state’s goal.
Puerto Rico. Shifting our attention to a U.S. territory in the Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico was devastated by a direct hit from Hurricane Maria in September 2017, which knocked out much of the island’s power for almost a year. Six-and-a-half years later, the island is still 97% dependent on diesel fuel for its electrical energy. Puerto Rico had the opportunity after the hurricane to make its electricity much less vulnerable to the devastation of tropical storms by decentralizing it into interconnected, multiple smaller grids powered by solar, wind, water, and battery storage. Instead, Puerto Rico – with the support of its U.S. government enablers – sold the island’s power grid to a consortium of U.S. and Canadian companies – that made the jaw-dropping, but not unexpected, decision to rebuild a highly vulnerable, centralized grid similar to the one that was devastated in 2017.
We don’t have the time or space for another 190-some thousand stories, but you get the idea.
The Alliance of Small Island States and its supporters in the United Nations and elsewhere are doing their best to replace unsustainable fossil fuel energy in island communities with local clean energy. The future of these islands and our planet depends on it. The country of Samoa is a clean energy leader in this group of small islands. The U.S. territory of American Samoa unfortunately is not. My sons and I loved the people and the beauty of the territory but could have done without the diesel smog.