Tokelau Runs on Sunlight

Until 2012 each of Tokelau's three atolls burned around 200 litres of diesel a day in generators, shipped thousands of kilometres across the Pacific at a cost of over NZ$1 million a year. In October 2012 the territory finished installing 4,032 solar panels, 392 inverters and 1,344 batteries across Fakaofo, Nukunonu and Atafu — at the time the largest standalone solar system in the world — and became the first country to generate essentially all its electricity from sunlight. The roughly one-megawatt system produces about 150% of the islands' current demand. The only fossil fuel left in regular use is for Tokelau's three cars. For an atoll nation two metres above sea level, cutting its own emissions was never the point; proving it could be done was.