Photo voltaic panels go into service close to North Pole
By Viken KANTARCI
Kapp Linne, Norway (AFP) Sept 19, 2023
Norway has put in photo voltaic panels in its Svalbard archipelago, a area plunged in round the clock darkness all winter, in a pilot venture that would assist distant Arctic communities transition to inexperienced vitality.
Neatly lined up in six rows in a subject, 360 photo voltaic panels will on Thursday start offering electrical energy to an outdated delivery radio station, Isfjord Radio, now transformed right into a base camp for vacationers.
The windswept archipelago — often known as Spitsbergen — is positioned some 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from the North Pole and is accessible solely by boat or helicopter, weather-permitting.
“It is what we imagine to be the world’s northernmost ground-mounted PV (photovoltaic) system,” Mons Ole Sellevold, renewable energies technical adviser at state-owned vitality group Retailer Norske, instructed AFP.
“It is the primary time anybody has accomplished it at this scale within the Arctic,” he mentioned, his rifle slung over his shoulder in case polar bears flip up, a not unusual incidence at these latitudes.
One other 100 photo voltaic panels are positioned on the roof of the radio station — which has till now run on diesel turbines — and will cowl about half of the location’s electrical energy wants and reduce its CO2 emissions.
In summer time, the area is bathed in an abundance of daylight, with a “midnight solar” that by no means units.
The photo voltaic panels additionally profit from the “albedo” impact, the reflective energy of snow and ice, in addition to low temperatures that enhance their effectivity.
Conversely, in winter, the area is plunged in complete darkness from early October till mid-February, which makes it inconceivable for Isfjord Radio to utterly quit fossil fuels.
Retailer Norske is subsequently additionally contemplating different options, comparable to wind farms, to additional the station’s inexperienced transition.
– ‘Check web site’ –
The transfer is motivated by environmental issues in addition to financial components, with diesel expensive to purchase and transport, whereas photo voltaic panels are additionally simple to take care of and don’t break down, Sellevold mentioned.
The purpose can also be to make use of the set up as a pilot venture to see if the know-how can be utilized by some 1,500 different websites or communities within the Arctic that aren’t hooked as much as conventional electrical energy grids and likewise have to transition to inexperienced vitality, he mentioned.
“We wish to make Isfjord Radio a check web site to … get an Arctic-proven know-how that we are able to afterwards take to different places like this,” he mentioned.
In line with a examine revealed final 12 months, the Arctic has warmed practically 4 instances quicker than the remainder of the planet over the previous 40 years, inflicting ice to soften quicker and disrupting ecosystems.
This has affected each native populations and the remainder of the world, with rising sea ranges and excessive climate occasions.
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