World’s First Wind & Solar Powered Antarctic Research Station Officially Opened

In Antarctica on Sunday the world’s first “zero emission research station” was officially opened: The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. Commissioned in 2004 by the Belgian government, the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (sounds like a hotel, doesn’t it?) will allow 20 scientists to carry out research on climate change, and, apart from getting down there, not contribute to it while doing that research:

The whole base is powered through renewable energy sources: Eight small-scale wind turbines, as well as solar panels provide all the electricity; solar thermal technology melts snow to provide water. Currently, this is the only polar research station entirely powered through renewable energy, most bases being powered by diesel generators. So the researchers can say goodbye for solar now while they try to save antartica from galobal warming effect.

To operate Princess Elisabeth on renewable energy required a lot of planning and built-in redundancy of systems. The station itself is aiming for zero emissions, will have on-site wind turbines, many solar panels (though with the large amount of solar rays that hit the station, cooling becomes as important as heating) two bioreactors and two filtration units. There is also an emergency diesel generator back-up and outside the station's buildings researchers are reliant on some diesel for snow mobiles and snow movers (they hope to eventually run these with a fuel cell). Special materials were used to build the station, which actually was first assembled and displayed in Belgium, then deconstructed and reassembled at Utsteinen.