16 March 2009 | The Greek island of Agios Efstratios, or Ai Stratis, will be the first island in the country and the Aegean to be entirely powered by renewable sources, including solar and wind energy.

The island, located in the northern Aegean Sea about 30 km southwest of Lemnos and 80 km northwest of Lesbos, currently has 260 inhabitants, according to the Ta Nea newspaper.

It was selected to become the first Greek green island over other candidates – Milos, Gavdos, Nisyros and Tylos, because of its small area as well (42 square kilometres). This means that the needed investment would be small and the time for the project’s realisation would be short.

The value of the whole investment would be 3 million euro, according to the Development Ministry, cited in the publication. The installation of wind generators and photovoltaic systems for converting sunlight into electricity is planned.

“Ai Stratis is ideal for such an undertaking,” because of its small population and the low daily consumption of energy, Nikitas Nikitakos, a professor from the University of the Aegean’s Informatics and Naval Electronic Technology Department told the Kathimerini newspaper last year, when the island was still a candidate.

The Greek government decided to create a green island in Greece, following the example of the island of Samso in Denmark, where environmentally friendly means are not only used to produce energy and heat buildings but in farming and livestock breeding. After winning a government competition to become a model renewable energy community in 1997, 100 per cent of the island’s electricity now comes from wind power.

Greece’s first green island was named after Saint Eustratius, who lived on it in the ninth century as an exile, because he was opposed to the iconoclastic policies of the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Armenian. The saint's supposed grave is still being shown by the inhabitants.

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