“Isla Renovable” project

A project to raise public awareness of the importance to island communities of renewables.

The aim of this project is to raise awareness of the importance of renewable energy in island territories, due to the special isolated nature of their electrical systems, which renders them quite different from territories that are electrically interconnected. Energy management is vital to every electrical system, but especially in stand-alone systems that do not have the advantage of being connected to other electrical systems, providing the grid with greater overall stability.

The project aims to bring closer to the lay population the technologies involved in renewable energy generation, the factors that maximise the use of renewable energy in conjunction with the grid, and the environmental and economic benefits that renewables offer island territories.

To this end, an interactive game, “Isla 100%”, has been designed. It is available in Spanish and English for download as a mobile app on Android and iOS devices, as well as an online game, available at the project’s website.

The didactic elements of the game are based mainly on the use of new technologies for raising awareness of scientific information, and the use of an interactive simulation game as a teaching tool. The game involves the user choosing different ways of solving certain problems, in a pleasant and simple way, while also encouraging discussion and experience-sharing among users.

The ‘Isla 100%’ game

In the ‘Isla 100%’ game, the player is on a virtual island powered solely by conventional energy sources and must try to increase the input from renewable energies into the electrical system, always meeting the island’s energy demand and at reasonable costs. The app has three levels of difficulty, which correspond to islands of different population sizes, energy use and available renewables.

The game has been designed to maximise the subsequent educational impact as a tool that teachers can use to show how a stand-alone electrical system works and the importance of its correct management. To optimise this teaching purpose, a training manual and a series of complementary video tutorials have been developed to accompany it, which will facilitate the work of the teacher. In addition, awareness of the app will be promoted among secondary education groups and the general public, as well as in teacher training sessions on the island of Tenerife.