Global Action Plan International

Ten years ago, this island drew nearly all its energy from oil and petrol brought in by tankers, and from coal-powered electricity transmitted through a cable link. Now that traffic in energy has been reversed: the island exports millions of kilowatt hours of electricity from renewable energy sources.

Everywhere you travel on the island you see signs of change. There are dozens of wind turbines dotted across the landscape, solar-panelled roofs, and a long line of offshore giant turbines. Towns have district heating systems powered by rows of solar panels covering entire fields, or by generators which burn straw from local farms, or timber chips cut from the island's woods.

And it wasn’t even difficult – ’A piece of cake,’ says a local farmer. None of these enterprises has been imposed by outsiders or been funded by major energy companies. Each plant is owned either by a collective of local people or by an individual islander.

Read about it here.