Rottnest Island Water and Renewable Energy Nexus

Welcome to the Rottnest Island Water and Renewable Energy Nexus (WREN) project phone app. This app will take you on a journey through the exciting renewable energy scheme that is making Rottnest Island more self-sufficient and sustainable. Use it as you explore the island, visit the solar farm and wind turbine and discover ways you can also reduce your ecological footprint. And look out for the educational signs dotted across the island.

What you can learn from this app:

See how wind and solar, combined with advanced control systems and enabling technologies such as the dynamic resistor and demand side management of the desalination plant, work together to contribute to the power needs of an island community, while reducing the reliance on diesel fuel.

Energy Overview – On the energy overview page you can find a live snapshot of the power being supplied by the wind turbine, solar farm and diesel generators, and consumed by the dynamic resistor and desalination plant. As well as the current solar irradiance and wind speed, that power the renewable energy generation. Click on these interactive icons, to find out more information about how they work and what they do! Other interactive features to check out include;

- “Renewable Surplus” button - Lights up when there is more renewable energy being generated than what is being used. This gives the island occupants a live indication that it is a good time to use sustainable energy for high energy tasks such as cooking and washing.

- Renewable energy percentage – On average renewable energy stands around 45% but
renewable energy generation depends on many factors such as; time of day, cloud cover, wind speed etc. For example a bright windy day will produce up to 90% renewable energy, while calm cloudy conditions will generate a lot less.

- “Renewable Desalination” button – This button lights up when there is more renewable energy than customer load, which can trigger the desalination plant to start operating, utilising excess renewable energy.

Savings – Here you can find estimates of the annual environmental and economic savings on averted CO2 emissions, litres of diesel saved, equivalent “cars removed from the road” and reduced costs of diesel.

Map – A map of Rottnest Island showing the locations of each of the parts that make up the Rottnest Island Water and Renewable Energy