Alfonzo Chiscano, president of Friends of the Canary Islands with a team of Canary Islanders, were welcomed in San Antonio, U.S.A. to give a talk on small-scale solar-powered desalination plants.

El Hierro is in the process of being made totally reliant on wind and sun, and by the end of 2009, El Hierro should be the first of the world's larger inhabited islands to generate its entire power requirements from renewable energy sources. Three windmills and two hydro-electric power plants are all that is needed to achieve this aim.

"We don't have the wide sandy beaches of Gran Canaria and the island is a difficult place to reach," said Javier Morales, deputy mayor of the capital Valverde. "That's why we have to try and exploit niches in the market such as eco-tourism or compete against mass-production on Tenerife with our eco-friendly fruit."

Domestic criticism alleging renewable powers like wind and solar are hampered by their intermittent nature are laid to rest in the extremely simple plan to pump water uphill when power from El Hierro’s wind turbines is not needed or at its lowest public demand time.

 “We let the water fall down when there is no wind,” said Gonzalo Piernavieja of the Canary Islands Institute of Technology. As it 'falls,' the water runs over a series of turbines to generate more electricity.

As far as eco-tourism in concerned, "Although the project is still in its early phase, we think that in a few years time we will be known worldwide.”