There are many landscape similarities between Iceland and Lanzarote. Now they also share the possibility of taking advantage of their reality as volcanologically active islands to transform terrestrial heat into energy.
For four years, a team of researchers from the Public University of Navarra has been studying in the Timanfaya National Park what opportunities are hidden in this natural enclave. Their conclusions have served to install in Deception Island in Antarctica, one of the most remote places in the world, a pioneering thermoelectric generator that allows creating renewable energy throughout the year and that is being used to monitor volcanic activity in the second most active volcano in this area of the polar south.
The professor of Engineering at the Public University of Navarra, David Astrain Ulibarrena, is in charge of leading this unique research project in the world and has participated in the Geothermal Energy in Timanfaya conference, on the occasion of the activities commemorating the 50th anniversary of the national park, to explain the progress of this work.
"Lanzarote has great geothermal potential because there is high temperature at a shallow depth from the surface of the ground. So, the question always arises, why is this heat not used to produce energy?" explains Astrain during an interview with La Voz. The difference is that this use cannot be done with the same technology as in Iceland or New Zealand because in Lanzarote there is no hot water under the ground, but air.
Faced with this reality, the team from the Public University of Navarra created a "totally different" and unprecedented technology that "is capable of using the heat from hot air without the need for water to produce electrical energy." The first generator was installed in the Camelleros area, in Timanfaya, four years ago and continues to produce energy. In total, the island currently has four generators, three of them on the Islote de Hilario, which were installed with the aim of supplying energy to the Montañas del Fuego restaurant, although it does not yet do so. This finding has traveled the world and already works "perfectly" in Antarctica, where geothermal heat is used to monitor the area throughout the year and its conditions are studied against extreme areas to improve this surveillance throughout the world. As part of the project, they have traveled to Antarctica twice. In the last campaign, the researchers Patricia Alegría, Nerea Pascual and David Astráin himself traveled to the Spanish military base of Gabriel de Castilla on Deception Island.
The technical director of the Renewable Energy Chair of the aforementioned university also calculates that each small generator installed in Timanfaya could supply the electrical demand of three homes. Thus, he adds that although the use of geothermal energy alone would not supply the entire island, "it can be a support" to achieve energy efficiency and decarbonization of Lanzarote and provide energy to homes, hospitals or schools. "You can install a series of generators and greatly reduce their energy consumption and, in this way, help reduce the consumption of fossil fuels," he continues.
The person in charge of this pioneering project warns of the possibilities for Lanzarote when developing geothermal energy. "It is very genuine, it is very much from Lanzarote and it could be the local companies themselves that dedicate themselves to its implementation," he indicates about future possibilities.
Regarding the landscape impact that it entails, Astrain explains that compared to solar panels, which stand out for their brightness when reflecting the sun, or wind turbines that rise several meters above the surface, "thermoelectric generators integrate quite well with the environment and have the advantage that, being modular, they can be installed in places where the impact is less, you don't have to do everything concentrated." In addition, its installation only requires holes in the ground two or three meters deep, compared to the kilometer-long surveys that were carried out in the 70s to locate this energy. "It's similar to planting a tree," he says on the other end of the phone. In addition to this, in Timanfaya they have even taken advantage of pre-existing holes to reduce their environmental footprint.
This engineer defends that this method "does not pollute at all", since it consists of tubes of "about two meters that have water inside", therefore "there is no fluid or anything that could create pollution in the environment even if they broke." Thus, he highlights that the only impact it has is the visual one, which he describes as "small, rising around 60 centimeters from the ground." To tackle this, in the national park they have adapted them to the appearance of the environment.
