In the Brass Strait, off the northwestern tip of Tasmania, is King Island, which extends over 1000 km² and is home to 2000 inhabitants.
Since 2013, it guarantees the 65% of the energy requirement (7,8 GWh), thanks to renewable sources, and on days of intense wind reaches the 100% (12 GWh). In particular, 2,45 MW of wind energy, 0,39 MW of solar energy and 3 MW are produced through the storage systems.
The project "King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project", In which the Australian government has invested 22 million dollars, aims to make the island self-sufficient and contribute to the Australian mandate of 20% of production from renewables by 2020. The system is able to operate for about 3500 hours a year. Overall, since the system came into service, 21 million liters of diesel have not been burned, equal to 55 thousand tons of greenhouse gases not emitted, for a saving of over 22 million dollars (1,8 million direct savings year, in fuel, operating and maintenance costs).
The scalability of the project led to the state utility, Hydro Tasmania, to evaluate the replicability in the nearby Flinders archipelago, and numerous other world operators have appeared on the island interested in importing the promising hybrid system.