How Madeira’s Mountains Supply Freshwater For The Island | Islands of the Future

How Madeira’s Mountains Supply Freshwater For The Island | Islands of the Future

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Once Upon a Time their inhabitants used
to battle against wind waves and
isolation now they’re harnessing the
forces of nature to provide clean
energy islands of the
future role models for the whole
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world it’s a small piece of Portugal in
the Atlantic off the coast of
Morocco mad’s mountains rise up nearly
2,000 M into the sky they’re not only
beautiful to look at they also secure
the life of the
island without water from the mountains
the inhabitants of madira would be high
and
dry the struggle for water has always
made the island inhabitants
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inventive nowadays with a million
tourists visiting the island every year
the beauty of the place is under threat
mad’s inventive Talent is needed once
again will there be enough for everyone
in future too drinking water and
environmentally friendly
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energy
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it’s also called The Flower Island and
not without reason madira is famous for
its mild climate here on the edge of the
tropics it’s permanently
Spring coited by heat and
the farmers of madira grow vegetables
sugar cane and bananas all year
round since the Portuguese colonized mad
in the 15th century people have
inhabited the sunny South Coast in
particular the farmers here use every
inch of the
land you might think madira is a g
Garden of Eden Forever Green and
fruitful but if man did not intervene
here the island would have a very
different face in summer the southern
coast has rain only on one or two days a
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month actually it should be a lot drier
here how do the Medan turn their Island
into such a fertile
land
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the answer lies in mad’s
mountains in the north of the island the
clouds gather that are brought across
the Atlantic Ocean by the trade
wind even when it’s not raining there’s
at least a Mist clinging to the
slopes this is where the water begins
its Journey Down to the farm
fields on the Steep Mountain slopes the
moisture allows Evergreen Laurel trees
and bushes to
thrive this jungle the Laurel Forest is
found only on the Canary Islands the
aors and
madira the water collects in the Laurel
Forest small trickles swell into streams
and
rivulets the land is much too steep in
the mountains for G or Fields
agriculture is not possible
here instead the madans tap into Springs
and creeks and lead the water into
narrow
channels these channels known as lavadas
cut across the whole island from the
water Rich North to the Arid Southern
Coast at First Sight they look like
simple concrete channels but in fact
lavadas are engineering
masterpieces the gradient of the lavadas
is seldom more than 20 m per
kilometer just enough for the water to
flow
constantly
small gangs of building workers are
often to be seen landslides are frequent
on the slopes Stones roll down the
mountains and land in the lavadas then
muscle power is called
for the strong man men are constantly at
work on the lavadas they see to it that
enough water gets to where it’s
needed most of the lavadas were built in
the
1950s chroniclers recorded the
backbreaking work on film their footage
shows how hard and sweaty the work
was the very first water channels were
already constructed 500 years earlier
when the Portuguese came to the island
they forced African slaves to carve out
channels in the Steep mountain region
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later the madans themselves took over
the
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task where The Ravines are particularly
precipitous the workers apt sail down
using primitive equipment on the narrow
rock ledges any false step could be your
last
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they even had to drive tunnels through
mountains to create a route for the
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water
agustinho fera admires the work of the
lavada builders as an engineer he knows
better than anyone just what an
achievement it
was austino fera works for the local
electricity company he and his
colleagues see the old irrigation system
as a
godsend water has always been essential
for survival for the people of Madera
this network of channels hundreds of
kilometers long is unique in the
world originally it just served to
provide the people with drinking water
and to irrigate the fields then in the
last century they had another idea using
it to generate
electricity
mad’s electricity works gather the
precious water all over the mountains
some lavadas flow into Old tunnels where
the water is stored they were driven
into the mountain 60 years ago and
they’re still in
use there are also surface storage
basins in the mountains whether below
ground or in the open air this water is
also used to generate electricity the
steep slopes are ideal for hydro
electric power
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stations when the water shoots down the
mountain it has enough Force to drive
turbines it was in 1953 that the first
two hydroelectric plants became
operational they suffice to supply
madera’s energy needs up to
1960 high up in the mountains there’s
enough water for the power plants the
whole year round that’s why the oldest
of them like the fasad denera plant were
built in the middle of the Evergreen
Laurel
Forest austino fera and his boss Mario
Kim Fernandes are thrilled by the old
Power stations which are still running
today the two Engineers are here on a
special Mission they aim to
revolutionize energy provision on the
island using even more of these
renewable energy
sources I think that’s an interesting
thing this one piece will make fish 52
layers watch on mobile devices or the
big screen all for free no subscription
required Hydro power is one of the
cleanest ways of generating
electricity the turbines and generators
operate completely without polluting
emissions
the engineers are really enthusiastic
about the plant like their fellow
Engineers worldwide the two of them are
facing an enormous challenge madira 2 is
planning an energy revolution in future
they intend to generate more and more
energy in as climate friendly a way as
possible as at fasad
Nera however the electricity companies
can only use the water from the
mountains under one condition once it’s
passed through the turbines at the power
plant the energy companies have to
channel the water onto the population on
the coast they need it as drinking water
and for watering their fields the water
flows through tunnels built decades ago
right down to the capital
funch were gigantic projects in their
day a 5 km long tunnel was built here
using the simplest of equipment madira
can be proud of that achievement because
it was of fundamental importance for the
people on the south coast especially
during the summer providing sufficient
water was the big
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challenge
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the more water the lavadas can collect
in the mountains the more green energy
Mario Fernandes and agustino fera can
feed into the electricity grid and the
more water the people of madira have
available everything depends on how much
precipitation the island receives not
necessarily in the form of rain almost
every day the mountain peaks are
shrouded in Cloud the Mist helps to
ensure that it’s always moist in the
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mountains but why don’t the clouds and
the water they contain simply pass over
the
mountains instead of being caught by
them
these men give nature or madira a
helping hand they put right what’s been
destroyed over the centuries above the
Laurel forest heathland plants should
actually be growing to a height of
several
meters
but when the Portuguese took possession
of the island they set fire to the
forest in order to make space for
pastures the forestry workers are now
replanting the forest again as part of
the struggle for
water the men plant half a million trees
a year all of them indigenous
species
the indigenous species are best adapted
to the harsh conditions high up in the
mountains to the wind weather and
soil the plants comb the water out of
the clouds much to the satisfaction of
madera’s botanists and not only
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them the forest of Madera is decisive
for taking water from the Mist
regardless of whether it rains a lot in
summer or not at all as the Mist blows
through the plants like this Heather
tiny drops remain sticking to the leaves
and then falling to earth like
raindrops this brings almost as much as
when it
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rains
in the remote forests you might think
that the island always had enough water
but in fact every drop counts on
madira because madira is no longer a
remote
island the number of inhabitants doubled
in the 20th century
220,000 people now live on the island
half of them in the Capital funchal
alone nowadays funchal is a perfectly
normal European city but the many people
living here consume more and more
water a lot of madans don’t realize that
water could be in short supply on their
Island
most people have a small Back Garden
many grow their own fruit and
vegetables or they run a small banana
plantation but the plants only survive
if they’re watered in
summer there are no water sources on the
south coast so everyone claims their
share of the lavada water from the
mountains each farmer however small the
plot is completely dependent in summer
on an irrigation
system to prevent trouble among the farm
s there are firm rules as to how the
precious water is
distributed Jose Loro has a job which
only exists in this form on madira he’s
a water distributor a
ladero no one is as welcome a sight in
summer as Jose Loro and the other 200
lados who work on the
island the technique for Distributing
water to the farmers is as old as the
levada
channels via the holes in the wall of a
stone Basin the lero determines where
the water flows to and for how
long
not all of his customers can have water
every
day the work of Jose Loro is a full-time
job his predecessors used to travel
round on foot or on
Horseback nowadays the leros have their
own company car as it
were apart from that little has changed
in the work of of the lever arrows over
the course of time Jos Loro really needs
to be on good terms with all of his 150
or so customers all of them want to be
treated
fairly as postmen deliver the letters
elsewhere omad Jose Loro delivers the
liters
Maria Sardinia arrives early at her
small field directly on the coast she
has to be there when the water is due
otherwise it runs past her
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land when Jose Loro arrives Maria
Sardinia has to make best use of her
water
time not a drop to
lose even when it’s a cloudy day like
today in summer the clouds very rarely
release their rain on the coast in
earlier days there were sometimes Fierce
disputes over the precious water people
came to
blows but nowadays the leros needn’t
worry
the madans have calmed down even though
Maria Sardinia for example would have to
give up her small plot if there were no
artificial
irrigation carrots potatoes and the
other vegetables would die of thirst in
summer Maria wishes they had water every
day in July the driest month on madira
the levered era only comes every other
week there’s no more water to go
around it’s sometimes touch and go for
Maria sardinia’s
plants if there are too many hot days
her entire Harvest is in danger it’s
then Jose loreto’s job above all to cool
down people’s overheated
tempers in the dry season all his
diplomatic skills are called for
otherwise trouble is
pre-programmed
the nearer you get to the coast the less
water there is so there’s a hard and
fast rule on madira drinking water comes
first then it’s the farmer’s turn anyone
else wanting water has to join the back
of the
queue in summer this affects the
electricity works above
all the pipes that lead to the
hydroelectric power stations right down
on the coast are dry every drop of water
is needed for drinking water in summer
and then for the farmers during the
hottest period water is no longer used
as a source of
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energy the Hydro power stations built
directly by the Sea are on downtime the
whole summer from early June till the
end of September there is a
standstill without water the island has
no cheap and climate friendly
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energy instead DEA is then dependent on
dirty fossil fuel for its
energy a large diesel fired Power
Station pollutes the atmosphere in
summer especially the plant operates at
full blast that’s not just bad for the
climate it’s also extremely expensive to
transport Diesel and gas in tankers to
the iron stuck out in the Atlantic
Diesel power costs three times as much
on madira as on the
mainland Mario Fernandes and agustinho
fera the two Engineers from the
electricity works want to get rid of
costly Diesel
power they aim to generate more
electricity without burdening the
climate but how is that possible when
they have to shut down their power
plants every summer water power alone
cannot bring about madera’s energy
Revolution so they’re planning to
exploit other sources of
energy the power of the wind and the
sun wind
turbines and solar
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panels madira already had its first wind
powered generator in
1992 the first in the whole of
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Portugal back then the wind Parks were
built directly by the Sea this is no
longer allowed in order not to spoil the
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coastline so the energy companies have
turn to the mountains
instead the power Plateau is one of the
most remote corners of madira this is
where the energy producers have focused
their attention since the year 2000
they’ve built more and more and ever
larger wind turbines here the total
output has increased 10 times in just 10
years to 45 megaw enough electricity for
40,000
people the wind turbines have proved a
blessing for madira for another reason
too they’re bringing high tech to the
island and creating high value jobs for
a lot of young madans who used to move
away to the
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mainland the large complexes need
regular maintenance at Heights of up to
100 m the rule has to be safety first in
the past Specialists used to come from
the mainland for every inspection but
there are now so many wind turbines on
madira that the major manufacturers
employ maintenance teams on the
island
but wind power has an unfortunate
drawback one that’s especially serious
for a remote island you can only
generate electricity when the wind is
blowing and when it’s calm madira can’t
simply import
electricity there are no power cables
between the island and Mainland Portugal
1,000 kilomet
away
and though it’s hard to believe
sometimes there’s too much wind
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power at night when the madans turn in
energy consumption sinks abruptly if the
wind continues blowing the power it
generates can’t be
used
individual turbines are Switched Off to
avoid overloading the power grid moments
like these make the engineer’s Hearts
bleed it was always my dream for us to
make Optimum use of all renewable
energies on madira but there are limits
wind energy is only of use to us if we
can find customers for it immediately
but we really want to use all resources
everything that’s possible with wind
energy because wind is our cheapest
source of
energy so we have to find a way to store
wind energy only then can we use it
whenever demand for electricity is
high Mario Fernandes and austino fera
realiz more and more that wind alone
couldn’t be the answer for their Island
they had to completely rethink their
strategy how could wind energy be stored
on their Island and where could they
find the water they need in summer to
produce
electricity if they didn’t answer these
questions their whole project was under
threat
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and if that wasn’t enough 2/3 of Madar
is made up of protected conservation
areas the Island’s breathtaking
Landscapes are its capital tourists who
come because of the natural setting
don’t want to see it covered in wind
turbines
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fore
spee m
not everyone in mad’s mountains is
automatically a tourist of course
sometimes you come across a group of
biologists that work up
here the team accompanying botanist
Francisco Fernandes set off early this
morning the reason for the arduous
Ascent is the unique Flora of the island
it has to be
protected
we conserve the forest of Madera because
it’s important for its biological
diversity there are species here that
are unique in the world so we have to
protect them all the species in fact
apart from that the forest is important
for the water it collects and stores
water and for erosion because the forest
secures the
soil Francisco Fernandes is looking
specifically for indigenous plants they
are best adapted to the soil and
climate some plant species don’t grow
anywhere else such indigenous plants are
especially vulnerable a disaster like a
fire can wipe out an indigenous species
at a stroke Francisco Fernandes and his
team want to prevent
that
they’re collecting the fruits and seeds
of the rarest
plants the day’s Harvest is taken to
funchal to the seed bank of the
Botanical
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Gardens
Olga Batista’s job is to extract the
plant seeds from the fruits if the seeds
are properly stored they can germinate
years later and grow into new
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plants she washes off everything that
could rot or go moldy
later once Olga Batista has dried the
seeds they’re ready for the seed bank
botanists have counted over 800 plant
species on
madira 160 of them aren’t found anywhere
else in the
world
in refrigeration the seeds last for
years even decades madera’s Botanical
Gardens have thus created an archive of
life on the island an archive the
biologists can resort to should it prove
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necessary they need the seeds for
example for reforestation work in the
mountains
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hundreds of new saplings are ready for
the next planting phase and then to
start combing the water from the
clouds the Botanical Garden isn’t the
worst place to work on
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madira the Fantastic view of funchal
draws tourists to the sub tropical
garden every
day but it’s not just nature that
attracts a lot of people to
madira the wine is also famous among
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connoisseurs the grape Vines were
already on board when the first
Portuguese settlers arrived on the
island the Island’s wine business is in
the hands of eight
families it’s not the classic table wine
that they produce here madira wine is
drunk as an apparative or after a meal
the venters interrupt the fermentation
process by adding High proof
Spirits this keeps part of the grape
sugar in the wine in addition they store
their wine in hot attics and let air
into the large
casks heat and air give madira its
characteristic
flavor but the madans don’t live by wine
alone fish is the rather more nutrition
ious comestible on the island and you
can appreciate that best of all in
funchal’s Fish Market all the Delicacies
the Atlantic has to offer are displayed
on the Stalls of the marado do
lavadores a speciality is the Scabbard
fish a predatory fish fish that the
Anglers catch in deep water with a th000
M long fishing
lines in the past the people of madira
had to be completely
self-sufficient nowadays there are too
many people on the island for the local
fishermen to meet their needs their
catches augmented by imports from other
Atlantic Islands like the cape
veres
but the fish don’t only attract Gourmet
to
madira other tourists prefer to see
their sea creatures
alive the steeply shelving Coast is an
elder
for
divers some of them make their very
first exploration of the underwater
world
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here it’s thanks to the dedication of
divers that the gurha national Marine
Park came into being in 1986 it’s the
first of its kind in the whole of
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Portugal gura is certainly a tourist
magnet but it’s also the nursery for
mad’s underwater forner fishing is
banned
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here
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this is the star of The Reef the great
red grouper the MEO it’s threatened with
Extinction it used to be hunted
mercilessly with
harpoons now it can breed again in peace
in the National Marine
Park these Giants can live for over 30
years
and weigh over 200
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kilos the Mediterranean monk seal is
even rarer than the mayro there are just
400 of them left in the world most of
them in the Mediterranean I in the
Atlantic madira is the only place these
seals are
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found the large number of tourists who
come to madira because of its natural
beauty have changed the
island
tourism is by far the most important
economic Factor but also the biggest
threat a million tourists visit madira
every year and they all expect the same
sort of facilities that they have at
home showers every day the hotel pool
and electricity Around the
Clock all this aggravates madera’s
problems the visitors are driving the
water and energy requirements to Untold
Heights nowadays madira consumes twice
as much electricity as 20 years
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ago tourism could well destroy the very
thing that many people are looking for
here nature unspoiled and
beautiful the little water available has
to meet the needs of ever more people
and the situation could get a lot
worse scientists are afraid that climate
change could make the Summers even
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dryer the two Engineers Mario Fernandez
and austino fera could lose their Race
Against Time their plan to supply the
island with green electricity called for
a project on a massive
scale they wanted to store the water
which the island has in excess in Winter
for the dry summer period in the middle
of a
mountain in 2005 the engineers had large
scale tunnel boring machines brought to
the island what their forerunners did
with the simplest of means 60 years ago
was now being tackled with heavy
machinery they drove a 4 km long
Reservoir into the
mountain the pressure rainwater was to
be collected deep in the mountain a
surface Reservoir in the open air was
not a
possibility it’s difficult on Madera to
build reservoirs above ground the sort
of rock and the landscape don’t allow
that the solution we found for our
problem is to build an underground
reservoir that’s enormously expensive
and time consuming but it leaves the
landscape unscathed and we will solve a
great
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problem just a small Basin would
eventually be visible from outside the
Lion Share of the reservoir will be
hidden in the mountain as
planned in 2017 the mammoth feat was
accomplished the reservoir went into
operation
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the collected water could be distributed
from the
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Basin the water companies channed off
part of the water as drinking water for
the inhabitants and the visitors unlik
like other holiday Islands madira was
therefore not dependent on drinking
water being imported in tankers even in
especially dry
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Summers the water that’s not needed for
anything else can be used by the power
plants lower down from the Reservoir is
madera’s biggest and most modern
hydroelectric power station
suaros but despite the huge investment
in the reservoir even sucos proved
unable to operate every day in summer if
it didn’t rain for long periods water
was in short supply here
too all the water was needed for the
public drinking water system and for
watering the fields our plant was then
sadly useless it made no contribution to
supplying the energy needs of the
island so despite the new water
reservoir Fernand des’s plans looked
like miscarrying unless he could come up
with something new he’d have to bury his
dream of electricity from hydr power but
the engineer did have an idea which
sounded far-fetched what if the
hydroelectric plant could recycle the
water it used then it could still run
even in the dry summer when there was no
other water available the plan was to
collect the water that would normally
flow out to sea once it’s passed through
the power
plant this would mean building a second
Reservoir below the sakaros
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plant
this second Reservoir holds as much
water as passes through the turbines
during the day 55,000 cubic
m
water that would otherwise run into the
sea can now be collected in this
Reservoir and
reused in a central control room
technicians operate the modern sakaros
power plant from here they constantly
monitor how high the demand for energy
on madira is at any one
time when demand rises in the morning
they switch on the power
station huge valves
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open and the water shoots out of the
upper Reservoir in the mountain through
the downpipe and sets the turbines in
motion now suaros is generating
electricity after that the water flows
on into the lower Reservoir which
gradually fills
up so suaros can now produce electricity
for the Ireland for a whole day without
losing any water the power station’s
output is 50
megaw when energy demand Falls at night
Fernand des’s vision of storing wind
power comes into
play the wind which was once unused
during the night can now fulfill an
important
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role for this the engineers installed
four enormous pumps in the power
station with them the staff can now put
suaros into reverse gear as it
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were when the lower Reservoir is full
and the wind is blowing the technicians
turn on the
pumps The energy they need is supplied
by the wind turbines in the
mountains the water that’s collected and
stored during the day is pumped high up
the mountain again at night into the
upper
Reservoir so this Reservoir is acting as
a huge battery that’s charged up by wind
power madira now has what many Engineers
around the world have been looking for a
way of storing wind
power the next morning the upper
Reservoir is full
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again during the day when electricity is
needed there is now enough water
available to drive the turbines
again
at night the water once more changes
Direction the wind power driven pumps
transport it back up the mountain and
suaros stores
energy the sakuras plant is of immense
importance for madir because it alone
generates over 50% of our hydroelectric
power it’s a model for even more
ambitious
projects in order to secure the future
of the people on this
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island a further hydroelectric power
station is planned for the Paul deera
Plateau 10 times the size of
sukos a second hydrop plant that can go
into reverse and store wind energy
already has the goahead
with it madira will at a stroke double
the share that water and wind have in
generating energy already by 2020 half
the Ireland’s electricity will be
produced by renewable
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energies this puts madira several steps
ahead of the rest of Europe in the
European Union the plan is for just 27 %
of electricity to be generated by
renewable energies by the year
2030 madera’s example shows a lot more
could be
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done

Madeira’s mountains rise up nearly 2,000 meters into the sky. They’re not only beautiful to look at, but they also secure the life of the island. Without water from the mountains, the inhabitants of Madeira would be high and dry. The struggle to find water has always made the island’s inhabitants inventive. Nowadays with a million tourists visiting the island every year, the beauty of the place is under threat. Madeira’s inventive talent is needed once again, will there be enough drinking water for everyone in the future?

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