The lack of water for both drinking and irrigation not only inhibits social and economic development but also burdens significantly the cost of life. During the last years a lot of effort work has been done to increase the efficiency of sea water desalination by reverse osmosis. The climate in many islands of the countries of the European Union (particularly in the Aegean sea and the Canary islands) offers high solar radiation intensities and high wind velocities. At the same time these islands receive less rainfalls; and usually there is lack of water for both drinking and irrigation. Thus, in these islands there is plenty of ground towards the development of decentralised sea water desalination, through the locally available renewable energy sources. The proposed project regards a study of the innovative combination of photovoltaics with wind energy, thus developing a hybrid system and the supply of electricity to energising reverse osmosis desalination plants of two remote villages, so that to satisfy the electricity and water needs of two remote villages, not connected to the main electricity network.
The villages to be studied are on two islands, one on the Donoussa island (Aegean sea, Greece) and one on the La Graciosa island (Canary islands, Spain). In these islands (Donoussa and La Graciosa) two innovative PV-Hydro plants are in the phase of construction now, in the framework of the JOU2-CT92-0155 project. The present project refers to blue print planing for the extension of these installations to integrate photovoltaics and wind turbines for producing fresh water through reverse osmosis desalination of sea water.