In November 2017, Lonely Planet reported that Cabo Verde aimed to cover its entire energy needs with renewables by 2025. The island nation of about 550,000 people then covered roughly a quarter of its electricity use with renewables, while energy demand doubled every five years. Its power-hungry desalination plants, which supply drinking water to much of the population, were to play a role: they would run when wind was strong and demand low, pumping water into reservoirs for later hydropower generation.
The report presented desalination as a controllable load on an island grid: plants running during windy periods could deliver both drinking water and storage capacity. It gave no timetable for this coupling.