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When Hernán Socolovsky landed in Antarctica, the cold and emotion ran through his body. He was on board the Hercules, a plane in which the Argentine Air Force transports scientists, food and fuel during summer campaigns. “I will never forget the moment when I was one step away from stepping onto the ice, I couldn’t hold on any longer, and I jumped with both feet at the same time,” the engineer recalls.
For a decade, researchers from Argentina’s National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) have been installing solar panels to generate electricity in Antarctica and reduce the use of fossil fuels. This year, the team just completed the fourth installation in a shelter where glaciology is studied. In addition to reducing its environmental impact, the initiative seeks to lower the costs and risks of spills involved in the logistics of transporting fuel canisters to that area.
“Argentina has been on the white continent for 120 years, and the Antarctic Treaty, signed together with fifty other countries, establishes the need to protect Antarctic ecosystems,” explains Socolovsky, head of the CNEA Solar Energy Department. “With these facilities, we seek to replace fossil fuels with renewable ones to reduce the emission of polluting gases.”
The idea arose in 2014, when they were working on introducing the distributed generation paradigm in Argentina so that any user could install panels in their homes and sell energy to the electricity grid. That year, the Air Force asked them if they could set up an installation at Base Marambio, and so they did. It is small – it has eight panels – but emblematic: it has been in operation for a decade.
“One of the advantages of these systems is that they are autonomous. Since they inject energy directly into the grid, they operate without maintenance,” says Socolovsky, who is also a professor at the National University of San Martín (UNSAM). He also points out that the cost of transporting diesel to Antarctica “is extremely high” because it requires the use of planes and ships, as well as millimetric maneuvers to lower the tanks without spilling anything.
So far, the CNEA has carried out four campaigns. The systems installed at the Marambio and Carlini Bases are distributed generation and only provide a percentage of the energy equivalent to what a house consumes. However, at the Elefante and Isla Vega shelters, the panels are the only energy source and they have a storage system with lithium batteries to provide energy at night.
In addition, scientists at the Elephant Refuge have reported that, by stopping using the noisy diesel generator, the penguins come closer. Socolovsky witnessed this: “They are so curious that if you are not careful, they come into the refuge.”
Science below zero
Solar cells are made of silicon, a highly efficient material for converting solar energy into electricity. By connecting the cells together, panels are formed and generate current continuously. In order for this energy to be injected into the grid, an inverter is used to convert direct current into alternating current, which is used in homes.
The panels used in Antarctica are the same as those used in a home: what changes is the installation process. “We had to take off our gloves to put some nuts on, but our hands could only tolerate the cold for a few seconds. So we put the nut on, turned it three times and put our gloves back on because our hands were purple. This means that a task that normally takes half an hour can take us a day there,” says Socolovsky.
The Solar Energy Department is made up of about 25 professionals who also pursue other lines of research. A few years ago, they manufactured solar panels for space use for Saocom, Argentine satellites that monitor the Earth. Along those lines, a group led by physicist Marcela Barrera is working on developing the cells that make up the panel so that they do not have to be imported.
While manufacturing conventional panels is simple, today it is cheaper to buy inputs in China. While in the 1990s, panel production was distributed among countries such as Germany, the United States and Japan, today China accounts for 90% of the market. What added value can Argentina provide? Mainly, the specialized knowledge to test components and assemble and install the panels.
“In Antarctica, a challenging part of the job is finding the safest way to mount them. There was one case where a company did a bad installation and the panels flew off. Our installations have not had any issues because we have a group of mechanics dedicated to evaluating the robustness of the mounts,” says Socolovsky.
Researchers are also developing devices to measure radiation and better understand solar resources. In Antarctica, they observed that panels can generate 60% of the energy they would generate in a city like Buenos Aires. The useful life of the panels can be up to fifty years. When the panels installed in Antarctica stop working, they will have to be brought to the continent, just like the fuel canisters and any waste generated there.
Hot Glaciers
Vega Island is 60 kilometers from Marambio and can only be reached by helicopter. Researchers from the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA), which is part of the National Antarctic Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, go there to monitor the Bahía del Diablo glacier. Until 2023 they slept in camps, but this year they opened a shelter and photovoltaic system. “The shelter works only with solar panels and we have a generator for emergencies, such as when there are many cloudy days in a row,” says engineer Sebastián Marinsek, head of the IAA Glaciology Department.
The first time he went to Antarctica was to do electrical installations, but there he fell in love with glaciology and decided to apply his knowledge to that field. “I love everything: the climate, the nature and the solitude of the island, which you can’t find anywhere else,” he says. The rest of the year he works at the IAA, which is based on the UNSAM campus. It was there that he met Hernán Socolovsky, a former university classmate, and they decided to link their projects.
At Devil’s Bay, IAA scientists conduct long-term monitoring. “We have a data series that started in 2000 and it is the longest series ever done on an Antarctic glacier,” says Marinsek. They chose this glacier because its surface is accessible and can be traversed in a short time. For the measurements, they place two-meter rods at different points, leaving one meter above the surface. The following year, they measure how much the rod protrudes and determine whether the glacier has lost or gained mass.
The data obtained in Antarctica provide essential information on global warming. “Overall, we see that the glacier is on a continuous trend towards mass loss,” says Marinsek. “This trend indicates that the peninsula is warming and the glaciers are shrinking.”
National and environmental sovereignty
Socolovsky knows that there is still much to be done to reduce the use of fossil fuels in Antarctica. They recently obtained a public investment fund (BAPIN) but, as in many areas of the scientific system since Javier Milei assumed the presidency, subsidies have been paralyzed. This fund would allow the installation of systems in Antarctica with a power ten times greater than the current ones.
They are also considering the possibility of introducing other renewable sources, such as wind power, although this is difficult due to the strong gusts of wind. The main challenge for renewable energy worldwide is storage. Today, the focus is on lithium, but in addition to being expensive, it has a negative environmental impact due to its electrochemical composition and its methods of extraction.
The researcher stresses that it is important for the State to continue investing in the development and installation of renewable energy systems, especially in Antarctica, for a matter of sovereignty. Regarding his goals on the white continent, he says: “I will feel fulfilled if we manage to install a power equivalent to 20% of the energy consumed. Although I aspire that, in the future, 100% of the energy produced in Antarctica will be in the hands of renewables.”
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