Renewable energy development and its impact on islands

摘要: Locally available energy resources are fundamental to the future development of islands, given their extreme dependence on imported conventional energy sources, which makes them vulnerable to the volatility of supply and environmental degradation. The imported energy sources are often expensive, cause environmental damage, and leave islands without energy security. Energy options also decide other essential aspects of sustainable island development, affecting the island’s competitiveness in key sectors such as tourism, industry and commerce services, agriculture and transport. Within the last years, the number of projects involving renewable energy sources (RES), together with energy efficiency (EE) measures has increased. In some cases, the projects look in particular at RES solutions to solve fluctuations in energy demand due to seasonal tourism. In other cases, they propose RE technologies for desalination. In many cases, too, they consider holistic energy systems of RES and EE on islands. International collaboration and cooperation to develop EE and increase the use of RES can be very useful to stress the best strategies for islands’ sustainable development.