He is watering the desert with wind energy

The impulse for clean energy has entered the Spanish field strongly. In many places, the new energy projects collide with neighbors, landscapes and life forms that carry generations there. In the north, there are neighborhood protests For the proliferation of wind turbines that alter the landscape. In agricultural areas of the south, solar panels compete with traditional crops. And meanwhile, in Lanzarote, they have found in the wind a tool for something very different: water.

Transforming irrigation. As reported The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food through a press release, have launched an action to modernize the irrigation of 300 hectares in the northeast of Lanzarote, specifically in the municipalities of Tinajo and Teguise. The intervention, which is executed by the Public Company Seiasa, will focus on horticultural crops and will benefit 667 irrigators, although other sources raise this figure to 697, as He has published the province.

The total investment amounts to 24.4 million euros, not counting the Canarian indirect general tax (IGIC). The Lanzarote council has contributed a quarter of the budget and has acquired the land where the rafts are located, As he pointed out Diario de Lanzarote. The rest is financed through the recovery, transformation and resilience (PRTR) plan, with European funds Next Generation.

Watering with seawater. The work is articulated around an inverse osmosis, currently under construction together with the northeast treatment plant in Lanzarote, in the area of ​​the saint. From there, the water will be driven through a pumping station to two agricultural areas, where it will be stored in a tank of 4,000 cubic meters in the knife and in a raft of 38,000 cubic meters in tincheche, such as Diario de Lanzarote has detailed.

The entire infrastructure will have a telemedida and telecontrol system, which will allow automation and optimize the use of water, something crucial in a territory where each drop counts. Part of the energy that feeds the system will come from a wind turbine.

It is not the first or the last. The use of wind turbines in Lanzarote to boost irrigation is not an isolated case, but part of a broader trend in the Canarian archipelago: take advantage of their extreme natural conditions to test technological solutions that could be key in the energy and agricultural future. The combination of desalination, clean energy and automation makes these islands live laboratories.

In other areas of the archipelago it is also being experienced with innovative solutions. In iron, for example, they have been trying more than a decade Energy self -sufficiency with renewablesalthough they continue to partially depend on diesel. In Gran Canaria, a laptop fed by renewable energy has been installed to demonstrate that Drinking water can be produced without resorting to fossil fuels. In addition, on the islands as a whole It is exploring The use of the strength of waves to generate drinking water, through a system that converts the energy of the waves into electricity that feeds a desalination plant. These experiences, distributed by different islands, are part of the same impulse: try, rehearse, anticipate.

An agricultural laboratory. This type of infrastructure suggests more than the improvement of irrigation in a specific area. In a country increasingly affected by drought and The energy increasethe viability of the field will depend largely on how resources as basic as water or energy are managed.

In this context, Lanzarote, with its extreme conditions, works almost as an agricultural laboratory. And what is rehearsed there – or not – can mark the way for other agricultural areas that seek sustainable alternatives without giving up producing. The combination of unconventional sources of water and renewable energies does not solve all the dilemmas of the sector, but opens a space to rethink the agricultural model at a time when the current system shows clear signs of exhaustion.

Image | Ignacioromeroperera and Unspash

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